Stranger Child (2 page)

For the policeman, it was a relief when the silence was disturbed by the sound of sirens, growing ever nearer, and a few minutes later the ambulance pulled up, its lights picking out a lone cyclist who was approaching the scene hesitantly.

The man hopped off his bike and stood some distance away. The policeman walked towards him.

‘I’m sorry, sir – you need to keep back.’

‘Okay, officer. I’m just trying to get home.’

‘I understand, but I can’t let you along this stretch of road at the moment, sir. I’m sure you appreciate that.’

‘Is anybody hurt? That looks like Caroline Joseph’s car. Am I right?’ the cyclist asked.

‘I can’t confirm that at the moment, sir.’

The man peered around the policeman to get a better look at the car.

‘Is that her I can see? Oh my God. She’s dead, isn’t she?’ He looked at the policeman, his mouth half open in shock. ‘Poor David. That’s her husband. He’s going to be devastated.’

The policeman didn’t comment. All he could do was keep the man as far away as possible until reinforcements arrived, but even from this distance the woman’s head was all too visible.

‘She didn’t have Natasha with her, did she?’ the cyclist asked, his voice shaking. ‘Her little girl? Cutest kid.’

The policeman shook his head with some relief.

‘No, sir. The child seat is in the back but thankfully it’s empty. There was nobody else in the car.’

HUNT FOR MISSING GIRL SCALED DOWN

A police spokesperson has confirmed that, as of today, the search for missing Natasha Joseph has been scaled down.

Detective Inspector Philippa Stanley of the Greater Manchester Police gave the following statement.

‘Teams of professionals and volunteers have been searching the local area for over two weeks. We believe that every inch of the countryside surrounding the site of the accident has been covered. In addition to the teams on the ground checking any and every place that a young child might have crawled into to keep warm, we have employed sniffer dogs and helicopters with infrared detectors. I’m sorry to say that we have found nothing.’

Natasha Joseph – known to her family as Tasha – went missing after her mother’s car crashed on Littlebarn Lane as they returned from a family party. Caroline Joseph was driving, and no other cars were involved. When police arrived at the scene of the accident, there was no sign of the missing Natasha. Mrs Joseph was pronounced dead by the paramedics.

The police are now pursuing other lines of enquiry. In particular they are continuing to ask members of the public who were anywhere in the vicinity of the accident to come forward.

‘Whether people believe they know anything or not, it is always surprising how the smallest piece of information – the sighting of a specific car or a person acting in a suspicious way – can help, particularly when coupled with other intelligence that we have gathered. We are accessing the ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) system where appropriate, and have also secured CCTV footage from petrol station forecourts and other cameras in the nearby town. But we would urge anybody who was out that night in the surrounding area to come forward. Our trained interviewers will help you to piece
together each moment of that evening, and we are hopeful that the one vital piece of information we need is out there.’

The police have confirmed that while the physical search of the local area has been reduced, the team of detectives working the case remains at the highest level.

David Joseph, husband of Caroline and father of Natasha, and a successful Manchester businessman, issued an emotional plea on television last week.

‘Somebody must know where my little girl is. She has lost her mother, and poor Tasha must be heartbroken, confused and so very scared. Please help me to find her. I need my little girl. I have lost everything.’

To speak to somebody in confidence, please call 0800 6125736 or 0161 7913785.

1

Six years later

DCI Tom Douglas found himself humming a tune as he walked down the corridor to his office. He always enjoyed the first day back at work after a holiday, in much the same way as he had loved going back to school after the long summer break when he was a child. It was the sense of anticipation, the knowledge that the day would bring challenges that he was keen to face. He enjoyed the camaraderie of his team – not quite friends, but supportive allies who he knew had his back. It wasn’t the easiest job in the world, but he wasn’t often bored, and there was a lot to be said for that.

He pushed open the door to his office and reached his left foot out to manoeuvre his doorstopper into place. His foot met thin air. Looking down, there was no sign of the fat pig that he used to hold the door open. He hung his jacket on the coat stand and crouched down to look for it under the desk.

He heard a brief knock on the door and muttered, ‘Come in.’

The door opened, and he heard a voice he recognised well, trying to control a degree of mirth.

‘You okay down there?’

‘I’m fine – but somebody’s nicked my bloody pig.’

Tom stood up, brushing the knees of his suit trousers to get rid of the dust from an un-vacuumed floor. ‘Honestly, you’d have thought at police headquarters you’d be reasonably confident of finding upright, law-abiding citizens, wouldn’t you? I thought he might have been kicked under here, or something, but he’s nowhere to be seen.’

‘I think if anybody kicked your pig, you’d find them limping around with a broken toe. And nobody steals from a detective chief inspector unless they’re very stupid – although on that basis I suppose we have a few candidates to consider. I’ll ask around for you.’

Tom pulled out his chair and sat down, indicating that Becky should do the same. ‘How’ve you been, Becky? Anything exciting happened while I’ve been away?’

‘Run of the mill stuff, on the whole,’ Becky replied, as she grabbed a chair. ‘Except for a particularly violent rape, which we thought was stranger rape but wasn’t.’

‘Who was it, then?’

‘Her bastard boyfriend. He’d worn a mask and everything and was waiting for her on her way back from work. He beat her to a pulp, raped her viciously and then left her.’

‘What gave him away?’

‘She did. To start with, when she came round in hospital she said she had no idea who it was, but we could see she was hiding something. Turns out she was terrified that if she named her boyfriend, he would kill her. Finally she caved and told us, but said she wasn’t pressing charges because there was no evidence other than her word.’

Becky leaned back and folded her arms.

‘
But we got him. He’d been smart enough to wear a condom, but then stupidly chucked the used one in a bin, fifty metres down the road. Said his girlfriend had it coming to her because of the way she was flirting with other guys in the pub where she works.’

Becky’s lip curled in disgust, and Tom had a quick mental image of the icy determination with which she would have interrogated this guy. For all her personal vulnerability, his inspector had an uncanny ability to get the truth out of people.

‘Anyway, how was the holiday?’ Becky asked.

‘Good, thanks. Leo and I had a few days in Florence, then we went to my cottage in Cheshire. I had a pile of my brother’s papers to sort out, and Leo had to study for an exam, so it was one of those easy weeks that seem to disappear and be gone in no time.’

On the whole, Tom tried to keep his personal life private and had only recently started to occasionally mention Leo to his colleagues. He had been vaguely amused to find that one or two of them hadn’t realised that Leo was short for Leonora, and he’d seen the odd startled expression until Becky put them all straight.

Only a handful of people knew about the Cheshire home that Tom had bought when he left the Met. He rarely mentioned his brother Jack, either, although he knew Becky was aware of the tragic accident that had cut short his life a few years ago, just as she knew Jack had left Tom a fortune from the sale of his internet security business. She never raised the subject, though, unless Tom did.

Tom’s phone interrupted any further discussion about holidays.

‘Tom Douglas,’ he answered. He listened as his boss, Detective Superintendent Philippa Stanley, gave him the kind of news that he hated more than any other. His cheery mood disappeared in a flash.

He hung up the phone. ‘Grab your coat, Becky. We’ve got a body, and I’m sorry to say it’s a young girl, barely in her teens by all accounts.’

2

For once, Tom had relinquished control and agreed that Becky could drive them to the scene, but he regretted that decision a few minutes into the journey. Becky’s one-handed steering and apparent lack of regard for other motorists had been a bone of contention between them since they first met, and nothing had changed. He had tried to get her on to an advanced driving course, but she couldn’t see the need. As she said, she had never had an accident, and Tom could only assume it was because everybody saw her coming and simply got out of her way.

Now, as they screeched to a halt on a long straight road behind several other police vehicles, he was glad to get out of the car.

The road was lined with well-established trees that shielded some large detached properties from view on the right-hand side. On the left, a dense area of woodland was separated from the pavement by a solid wall. About fifty metres ahead, a uniformed officer was standing guard at an old-fashioned kissing gate that opened onto a narrow dirt path leading into the wood. A thin strip of crime scene tape was already in place.

Without a word, they pulled on their protective clothing and then made their way towards the path.

After a brief word with the policeman to establish their identities, Tom and Becky walked in single file along the muddy path, overgrown brambles catching at the legs of their suits, until they reached an arched tunnel. Tom assumed that an old, disused railway line ran above, and he saw Becky wrinkle her nose as they entered the dark and gloomy space. Based on the smell and the rubbish lying on the ground, it would seem the tunnel was regularly used for less than salubrious activities, and as they picked their way over broken bottles and beer cans, keeping to the centre of the path to avoid some of the unpleasant detritus littering the area further out towards the walls, Tom looked around. If the girl had been murdered, why kill her out in the open and not in here, where there was less chance of
being seen? The place had crime scene written all over it – and if not this crime, he was sure the tunnel had witnessed its fair share of depravity.

Beyond the tunnel, another officer was waiting to point them in the right direction, and ahead they could see two white tents, erected either side of an oak tree and taped together to enclose its thick trunk. Standing just outside the scene perimeter tape, Tom spotted the oversized figure of Jumoke Osoba, better known to Tom as Jumbo. He was glad to see that – for whatever reason – this girl had been allocated the best crime scene manager that Tom had ever met. For once, Jumbo’s huge, infectious grin was missing. Tom nodded his head in acknowledgement.

‘What do we know, Jumbo?’

‘Young girl – at a guess I’d say she’s about twelve, but could be a bit older. Luckily for us, a Home Office pathologist was already in the area, so we haven’t had to wait. He’s with her now, and he’ll be able to tell you more. It’s James Adams, by the way, and he knows what he’s about, thank God. Before we got the tents up I could see the girl had been there a few days at least – so it’s not a pretty sight.’ He looked at Tom with understanding. ‘You going in?’

Tom nodded, and as he lifted the perimeter tape to stoop under it, he turned to Becky.

‘I don’t think this needs both of us, Becky. You talk to Jumbo. He can fill you in on anything we’ve learned up to now.’ There was no disguising the look of relief on Becky’s face. She had seen her share of bodies, but kids were always different – especially ones who had been dead a while.

As Tom entered the tent, his eyes were dragged to the body in front of him. From where he was standing, he could see that putrefaction was advanced. Given that it was early March and cold for the time of year, that meant the girl had been here for a while, slumped against the oak tree, partially buried in rotting leaf litter, wearing nothing more than a thin white nightie. On her feet were a pair of trainers, grey with age and splitting around the sole. What looked like a blue anorak was bunched up a few feet from the body, and the neck of the nightdress was ripped.

Tom looked around, but there was nothing more that he could see. It would be down to Jumbo’s team and James Adams to collect the evidence, and Tom’s job to work out what had happened to her. He spoke briefly to the pathologist and left him to his work.

Stepping back outside the tent, Tom took a deep breath of cold, clean air, closing his eyes for a second as he thought about the girl’s family. If she had been reported missing they would identify her soon enough.

He made his way back along the approach path, careful as always not to deviate from the stepping plates and contaminate the scene. He could tell from Becky’s body language that she was eager to speak to him. Hopefully, the team back at base had been doing their work and had a name for this kid.

‘What have you found, Becky?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. Absolutely big fat zero. I’ve just had a call to say that no girl in the age range ten to fourteen has been reported missing in the last two weeks. We’ve drawn a blank so far. We’re going to have to go back through kids that have been missing for longer that fit the profile and extend the search to neighbouring forces.’

‘She can’t have been missing for long, because I don’t think she’s been living rough,’ Tom said, shaking his head. ‘She’s wearing a white nightie, for God’s sake. How many street kids put on a nightie to go to bed? What do you think, Jumbo?’

Jumbo had been standing quietly by, listening to the conversation.

‘We’ve found no personal effects, but until we move the body we can’t search the area immediately around her. There’s no ID in her anorak pockets. But I’m with Tom. She’s not a street kid.’