Started Early, Took My Dog (40 page)

Mitch had a dossier, a huge file, depressing in its size, full of runaways and abductions of all kinds. He knew more about some of the kids in that dossier than Interpol. All those photographs broke Jackson’s heart. Holiday snaps, birthdays and Christmases, all the highlights of family life. Jackson found photographs unsettling enough at the best of times. There was a lie at the heart of the camera, it implied the past was tangible when the very opposite was true.

Jackson himself always made sure that in the course of taking snaps of Marlee there was, every year, one good, clear head-and-shoulders shot, facing the camera. That was usually the one that if he showed it to Josie she would say, ‘That’s a great likeness,’ and he never told her that it was in case their daughter went missing. Children changed by the day, if you stared at them long enough you could see them grow. When he was on the force he had seen too many poor portraits (holidays, birthdays, Christmases) over the years (‘She doesn’t really look like that now’). This was what happened to you when you were a policeman, even on a sunny day in a
bateau-mouche
on the Seine or on a picnic in a Cornish cove, death was ever present, and you were staring at it down a lens.
Et in Arcadia ego
. And, of course, he knew the statistics, 99 per cent of abducted children dead within twenty four hours. Going on half of them dead within the first hour. No photograph, however good, was going to help with that.

A child who is lost was the worst thing in the world. The ones who came back from the dead, the Nataschas, the Jaycee Lees, were the decimal-point percentage of the statistic, offering futile hope.

Mitch’s dossier charted height, eye colour, hair colour. Distinguishing marks, left arm broken at age five, small scar on left knee, birthmark the shape of Africa on forearm, little finger broken, two teeth missing, allergies, illnesses, missing appendices and adenoids and tonsils, X-rays, a scar like a crescent moon, DNA. Desperate little signs. Those missing kids were never coming back, that was the truth. All of them dead or ruined by now.

There were other kinds of missing kids, of course. The ones that stayed below the radar. Parental abductions. The black ops. Of course it was better to have your kid taken away by a disgruntled possessive ex than for the same disgruntled possessive ex to stick the kids in the car and run an exhaust into it or stab them in their hearts while they slept over on an access visit, but that didn’t mean that you could just ignore custody orders and run off to somewhere without extradition. Or somewhere that didn’t care. Or somewhere that thought it was OK to take a kid away from its mother. Someone had to bring them back, might as well be Jackson. Better than being a real mercenary, all those private security firms in Iraq he’d been approached by, or running security for diamond mines in Sierra Leone, frontier living where you took your life in your hands every time you stepped out of the door.

He had looked for kids in Japan, Singapore, Dubai. Munich. It was surprising. Jennifer, the girl in Munich, had a brother who had been taken to live with relatives somewhere else. Jackson didn’t know if anyone had ever found him. Neither kid had ever been away from their mother before their Egyptian father took them on a court arranged holiday. He lived and worked in Germany, he simply changed the girl’s name, enrolled her in school, said her mother was dead. By the time the girl learned enough German to explain her situation to someone she’d probably have forgotten her mother. Kids forget easily, it’s a protection thing. Jackson caught up with them a lot quicker than the slow wheels of German bureaucracy were likely to. Six hours after he and Steve took her from that gingerbread house she was back home in Tring with her mother. Mother and child reunion.

Something was nagging at him but he didn’t know what. From his wallet, Jackson took the photo that he had stolen in Linda Pallister’s office. A little girl on a beach. One good head-and-shoulders shot. In his heart Jackson felt sure that it was Hope McMaster. He sighed and put the photograph away again.

It was barely half past nine when Jackson took to his bed. It was a single bed, and the dog had already claimed a considerable part of it. When Jackson climbed between the thin sheets, the dog stirred, raised its head and looked at him blankly, like a sleepwalker, and then settled down again. Jackson lay in bed for a long time beneath the unblinking watch of the dead-eyed dolls.

He found the invitation to the golf club dinner-dance at the back of a drawer in his office. Barry sneered at the command to ‘Dress to impress – black tie.’ There was, the invitation promised, a live band until midnight, followed by a seventies disco, a raffle with ‘fantastic prizes’ – a mini-break for two to the Isle of Wight ‘(including ferry crossings)’, a signed DVD boxed set of
Gavin and Stacey
, not to mention a ‘full-sized cricket bat signed by the Yorkshire CCTV First XI’. It was the kind of do Barbara used to like – an excuse to get dolled up in some horrendous outfit and brag to other women about Amy’s ‘A’ Levels, her college certificate, her engagement, her baby. Not much to boast about now.

‘Dress to impress, it says, Barry,’ Len Lomax laughed when he caught sight of him. Unlike Barry, he was in a tux, smoking a cigar, expansive, polished. He was a big bloke who hadn’t shrunk with age yet, looked in much better shape than Barry. How old was he – seventy, seventy-two? Pensioners didn’t behave like pensioners any more, they all thought they were ruddy Sean Connery.

‘I can get you a plate of something if you like?’ Ray Strickland’s wife offered. Margaret. Scots. Barbara said she had some kind of women’s cancer but she looked the same as ever, all gristle, no meat. Soft on the outside, hard on the inside. Barbara had never liked Margaret Strickland – that didn’t say much though, there were a lot of people Barbara didn’t like, Barry included. ‘I’m sure the kitchen has food left,’ Margaret said. There was a menu propped up on the table,
Agneau rôti et purée de pommes de terre
.

‘That’s roast lamb and mashed potatoes to thee and me,’ Ray Strickland said. Strickland didn’t look in quite as good nick as Len Lomax but he still had that same nervous power running through him. Barry always used to think that you never quite knew which way he was going to go, nice or nasty. Just a little bit unstable. Barry wished he could go back, wished his younger self had had the nerve to tell Strickland and Lomax to bugger off and leave him alone.

‘Or some dessert?’ Margaret offered. ‘There’s tiramisu.’

The great and good had all finished their tiramisu, judging by the smears of what looked like shit on their plates.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Barry said. ‘Thanks all the same.’

‘We never see you here, Barry,’ Margaret Strickland said.

‘That’s because I don’t play golf,’ Barry said.

‘You drink though,’ Lomax said, pouring him a glass of whisky. The band was tuning up and Alma, Len’s wife, said, ‘Will you have a dance, Barry?’ She’d aged badly, too many holidays in cheap foreign sunshine. Over seventy and still in stilettos and full slap. They made Alma and Barbara and then they broke the mould. Thank God.

Ray Strickland made a little gesture with his head, indicating that he wanted Barry to go outside with him. Barry patted Alma on the shoulder and said, ‘Maybe later, pet.’ When hell froze. He followed Ray Strickland outside. The cool night air felt like medicine.

‘Thought we might not get a chance to have a chat at Rex’s funeral tomorrow,’ Strickland said.

‘Oh aye?’ Barry said.

‘I don’t know how to put this exactly,’ Strickland said. He looked down at his polished shoes and frowned.

‘Someone’s nosing around asking questions about Carol Braithwaite?’ Barry offered helpfully.

‘Yes,’ Strickland said, relief all over his face.

‘Do you want me to do something about it?’ Barry asked.

‘Could you?’ Ray Strickland asked uncertainly.

‘Oh yeah,’ Barry said. ‘I can do something.’

As he climbed wearily back into his car, Barry wondered if the great and the good would be raising a glass to Rex Marshall before the night was over. Maybe before the ‘seventies disco’ started.

They’d all been there at that New Year do in the Metropole, Eastman in his pomp, Rex Marshall, Len and Alma Lomax, Ray Strickland and his odd little wife, Margaret, the Winfields.

Ian Winfield might still be alive. Barry didn’t know if anyone had heard from the Winfields after they decamped to New Zealand. He hadn’t thought about the Winfields in a long time. Kitty Winfield. Ian Winfield. He found himself falling down a long black tunnel and came out in the past. C
an I get you anything, Constable? Barry, isn’t it?

Carol Braithwaite rising. Rising, rising.

1975: 21 March
Barry lit up a fag. He was sitting in his car outside the Winfields’ house. Very nice house. Barry couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to live in a house like this, to live in Harrogate, the capital of northern posh. He should bring Barbara to Harrogate. If he could ever pluck up the courage to ask her out. He was going to ask her to go to the flicks with him. Barbara was very sophisticated compared to most of the girls he knew, always immaculately turned out. ‘She’ll spend all your money, a girl like that,’ his mother said.

He had no idea what Strickland was playing at. Rambling on about how his car was in the garage for its MOT so he didn’t have any wheels, could Barry pick him up? Barry didn’t see what was stopping him getting a taxi. Barry was off duty, just sat down to a big fry-up his mother had cooked for him. Wished Ray Strickland didn’t have his home phone number. ‘Not a squad car,’ Strickland said.

Strickland was waiting outside the flats in Lovell Park when Barry drew up in his old Ford Cortina. The Mark 2. A car Barry still remembered with affection over thirty years later.

Strickland was carrying a kiddy, asleep, wrapped in a blanket in his arms. He looked shaky, really shaky. He seemed to be in some kind of stupor. Alcohol, Barry assumed. Everyone knew that Strickland couldn’t hold his drink. Barry opened the back door of the Cortina for him. ‘Boss?’ he said, hoping for an explanation.

‘Just drive, Crawford,’ he said wearily, ‘Harrogate, the Winfields.’ Barry knew who the Winfield couple were. She was glamorous, used to be a model. Barry would give her one any time.

Strickland roused himself as they turned into the Winfields’ street. ‘It’s good of you to do this,’ he said as they came to a stop outside the house. ‘I’d really appreciate it if you kept this between the two of us.’

‘Your secret’s safe with me, boss,’ Barry said. No idea what the secret was, mind you.

‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ Strickland said to Barry as he climbed out of the car, kiddy still asleep in his arms. Again, Barry had no idea what it looked like. Barry watched him walk up the path, ring the doorbell.

He waited ten, fifteen minutes. The front door opened and Ian Winfield came out. Barry rolled down the Cortina’s window and Winfield said, ‘Can I get you anything, Constable? Barry, isn’t it?’ Smooth bedside manner.

Barry wondered what kind of thing was on offer. ‘No, thanks,’ he said.

‘Detective Constable Strickland will be out in a minute,’ Winfield said in the soothing tone you would use to a restless child.

Five minutes later and Strickland was back in the car, even shakier than before. ‘Take me home, Crawford,’ he said. ‘My wife’ll be wondering where I am.’

That was three weeks before they discovered Carol Braithwaite’s body in Lovell Park. They said she’d been lying dead for three weeks. Even Barry could do the maths. Strickland had killed her and taken the kiddy.