The Reckoning (9 page)

“When I hadn’t heard from her after half an
hour, I called Michael.”

“Did he say anything to make you think he
might have done something to your daughter?” Justin asked, looking up from his
pad.

For several long moments Donald was silent,
the look on his face thoughtful. Finally, he shook his head. “No, I’ve thought
about it constantly since I was told it was Michael who killed my baby, and
those other girls. He said he hadn’t seen Danielle; she hadn’t met him like she
was supposed to. He said he tried to get hold of her but there was no answer,
he hadn’t heard from her since she said she was stopping at her cousin’s on the
way up to the farm. He thought Gordon had talked her into doing something for
him, he does that a lot.

“When he didn’t hear from her after a while,
and he saw no sign of her between his family’s farm and Gordon’s house, he said
he went into town by himself. I should have been more suspicious, I should have
known he’d done something with her,” he berated himself.

“You weren’t to know,” Justin tried to
reassure him. “Hindsight is often the bringer of insight. You had no reason not
to trust what Michael told you; as far as you knew, there was nothing wrong
with either him or his behaviour. What happened after you spoke to Michael?” he
asked, scribbling away in barely legible shorthand.

“I called Gordon. He told me Danielle had
gone round on her way to Michael’s but hadn’t stayed long; she had promised to
come round the next day, saying the house needed tidying and then left. I
really began to panic then and I called the police. They told me they couldn’t
do anything until she had been missing for a day.”

Justin was well aware that the police would
not have been willing to do anything until Danielle Pale had been missing for a
day. Since she was sixteen, the police were unable to do anything for the first
twenty-four hours in the absence of evidence of foul play. He knew it was a
policy that had brought distress to the parents of many a missing and murdered
child. At the same time, he could understand the reasoning behind it.

At sixteen, a teen was considered capable of
looking after his or herself. An absence of twenty-four hours, even without
them notifying their parents, could be down to a number of reasons. While those
reasons were likely to cause panic among parents, they didn’t necessarily mean
anything was wrong, or that the teen was in danger or trouble.

“I don’t think I slept all night long. It was
the longest night I can recall since Danielle was a baby and poorly with the
flu. Anyway, the moment it reached morning and Danielle still hadn’t shown up I
called the police station again.

“I spoke to Les, Sergeant Underwood I mean,
that time, he’s a friend of the family, has been for years, and he agreed to
look for her even though it hadn’t been a full day. He knows what a good girl
Dani is, was,” Donald corrected himself with a sob, “and how unusual it was for
her not to be home on time, or to be in touch if something was wrong.”

“What action did Sergeant Underwood take?”
Justin inquired. He would have liked to be able to question the sergeant. As
the person in charge of the initial investigation, he was sure Sergeant
Underwood would have been able to answer a lot of questions; about the failure
to find Danielle Pale, and the failure to identify Michael Davis as her
murderer before he struck for a second time. Not only that, but he would have
liked to ask the sergeant about his apparent determination to prove that Jason
Denton was the killer, despite there being no obvious evidence against him. “As
I understand it,” he considered his words carefully, not wanting to offend the
man before him and bring an end to the interview, “the sergeant’s investigation
into your daughter’s disappearance was not as thorough as it could have been.”

“Les did the best he could,” Donald said,
though he sounded anything but certain. “He spoke to Michael and Gordon, and to
everyone in the village who might have seen Dani. No-one saw my baby after she
left Gordon’s.” Donald shook his head sadly, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Not, not until Mr Denton found her on Saturday.”

“Sergeant Underwood decided that Mr Denton
was responsible for your daughter’s murder, and that of Emma Water after her
body was found near to the your daughter’s, isn’t that so?”

“Yes.” The agreement was accompanied by a
nod.

“Did you agree with Sergeant Underwood?”

SIXTEEN

Frustrated, though she did her best not to
show it, Donna preceded Jason to the door. “I’ll be back later, when I’ve got
those things for Lucy,” she said. “In fact I’ll head on up to the farm and get
them now. “If you think of anything I might be able to do about the reporters,
let me know.”

“Of course,” Jason assured her. “But as I
told you, there really isn’t much you can do. As long as they’re not
trespassing on a crime scene or harassing people they have a right to be here
in the village. I know the people here aren’t going to like it, and it
certainly won’t be easy for you as the only police officer on duty at present,
but they’re only doing their job.

“The landlord of the pub can ask you to move
them on from his car park, and you would be obliged to do so, but what would be
the point. You can’t make them leave the village; they’ll just find somewhere
else to set themselves up. The best advice I can give you is that which I
already have; contact DI Anderson and let him know the situation,” he said. “As
a constable you aren’t senior enough to deal with the press, especially given
everything that’s happened. Anderson will have to arrange for someone to liaise
with them, if only to ensure that you don’t do or say something that might make
him look bad or mess up his investigation in some way.

“If you can’t get hold of him, call the chief
inspector. You should do that anyway in fact; you have a right to have some
support out there, and Inspector Livingstone apparently isn’t in a position to
request it at this time.”

“Thanks.” Donna turned away then and walked
down the drive. She’d been hoping for more from Jason, she’d been hoping that
he’d have a suggestion for how she could get Justin Over and the two reporters
out of the village. She knew it wasn’t really his fault; if there wasn’t
anything she could do, there wasn’t anything she could do.

Leaving her car in her grandmother’s drive
she made her way up the road, past the police car and the Land Rover. She
reached the Davis farm in just a few minutes, and made her way across the yard.

Entering the farmhouse she ascended the
stairs and entered Lucy’s bedroom, having been told which one it was by the
young girl. There was a bag in the corner of the room, just as Lucy had told
her there would be, and grabbing it up Donna began to fill it.

With no idea how long Lucy was going to have
to stay with Jason, or when she would be allowed to get things from her
family’s home for herself, Donna filled the bag with as much clothing as she
could.

From the top drawer of the chest of drawers
she grabbed an assortment of underwear and socks, which she stuffed into the
bottom of the bag. The drawer below that held nighties and pyjamas. She followed
that up with some t-shirts and tops, the weather was warm, since it was fast
approaching summer, but she thought it best to include something of everything.

Once she was finished with the chest of
drawers she moved over to the wardrobe. From it she took down several pairs of
trousers and a couple of dresses. They went into the bag as well, which was
full almost to bursting, and then Donna did it up; it was a struggle to get the
bag to close but she managed it in the end.

Having finished with the clothes, Donna
looked around the room for anything else that Lucy might need. A hairbrush and
a few other items went into the pockets of the bag before she left the room,
the bag in one hand and a pair of trainers in the other.

She put the bag and the trainers down at the
top of the stairs and made her way along to the bathroom. She was sure Jason
had plenty of toiletries at his house but Lucy was a young girl, there were
things she was likely to need that he wouldn’t have. A wash bag was in the
cupboard in the passage outside the bathroom and Donna quickly emptied it of
what it contained. With that done she filled it up again, going round the
bathroom and grabbing everything she thought Lucy might need.

When the wash bag was full Donna left the
bathroom.

Burdened with the wash bag, backpack and
trainers she descended the stairs and turned toward the kitchen. As she had
expected, she found an assortment of carrier bags in the cupboard under the
sink. She pulled one out and dropped the trainers and wash bag into it. She
then headed back down the passage to the living room.

In the far corner of the living room was a
desktop computer system on a compact desk. She’d felt uncomfortable and
uncertain when she looked through Emma Water’s computer; she felt none of that
as she settled on the chair in front of the Davis family computer. She wasn’t
sure why she felt differently, and she didn’t take the time to think about
either; she had a job to do.

While dealing with the vandalism at the Dean
Stables, and Justin Over’s visit to the Waters, Donna had considered the
request made by DI Anderson. Order was more accurate she supposed. He wanted
her to find out what she could about Michael Davis, and who he might turn to
for help. The Davis farm was the only place she could think of to find out
about Michael, and Jason’s request that she get some of Lucy Davis’ clothes had
provided her with an excuse to go there.

The moment she pushed the power button on the
computer Donna realised there was something she could – should - have done while
she was upstairs. She should have searched Michael’s room. What she might have
found in his room, she didn’t know, but she figured that somewhere he had to
have something that would tell her what friends, if any, he had.

When she saw how slowly the computer was
booting up – she’d thought her computer was slow, it was lightning fast in
comparison – she got to her feet. There was no point in her sitting around for
a couple of minutes, twiddling her thumbs while she waited for the computer to
reach the desktop. A much more productive use of her time was for her to go
back upstairs to search through Michael’s room, and that was exactly what she
did.

Since she didn’t know which room was
Michael’s, Donna had to find it by trial and error. That resulted in her discovering
the mess Michael had made of the master bedroom, when he searched his father’s
belongings for money and things he could sell to help fund his escape. Not that
she knew the reason behind the mess.

She looked around the room briefly, but saw
nothing that was useful to her or DI Anderson so she moved on.

It was about twenty minutes before Donna
returned to the computer in the living room. She had found nothing during her
search of Michael Davis’ bedroom, at least nothing that was likely to help the
detective inspector figure out where the teen might go. There was no sign of
Michael’s phone in the room, and she hadn’t found any other electronic devices.
Whether that was because he didn’t own any, or they were somewhere else, she
didn’t know.

As she had anticipated, the computer was set
up with user accounts for each of the Davis children. The computer was on Lucy
Davis’ account and Donna logged out of it so she could log in to Michael’s. She
was relieved to find that his account wasn’t password protected.

The first thing she did once she had access
to Michael’s user account was bring up his web browser. She clicked on the
bookmark for Facebook, figuring that it was the quickest and easiest way for
her to find out what friends the teen had. Michael’s friends list wasn’t long,
certainly not in comparison to some she had seen, and Donna hunted for a pad
and a pen so she could copy the names down. Of the thirty-four names, she
recognised only half a dozen. Danielle Pale, Jessica and Lucy Davis and Emma Water,
which surprised her given what she now knew. In addition to the four girls,
Donna recognised the names Andy Andrews, who had moved out of the village the
moment he finished school and was old enough to leave home, and Stephen
Newsome, the vet’s assistant.

She didn’t bother to write down the girls
names she recognised, there was no point. Danielle and Emma were both dead,
Jessica was in hospital and she couldn’t imagine that Michael would try and get
in touch with Lucy. Not after he had tried to run her down that morning.

Andy Andrews and Stephen Newsome she
scribbled at the top of the sheet of paper she had found, along with what she
knew of the two men. It wasn’t much in either case. When she had done that
copied down the other names from Michael’s friends list, thankful that there
wasn’t many, and what she thought might be useful from their profiles.

For the most part she only bothered with what
contact information she could see, figuring that DI Anderson would want that
ahead of anything else. She did write down where each of Michael’s friends was
from, when she could find the information, as well as the level of contact the
teen had had with them.

How much use the information was going to be,
Donna didn’t know. She figured it was best to give the detective inspector
everything she could find though. The more she gave him, the greater the
likelihood of her giving him something useful. Not only that but it would
reduce the chances of him deciding she had been lazy or negligent in her
duties. If he were to make an accusation along those lines it would have a
negative impact on her promotion prospects.

When she was done, which took a short while,
mostly because she felt the need to write it all out a second time to make it
legible as she could, she turned off the computer. Getting to her feet she
stuffed the list of names she had compiled into her pocket and gathered up the
back pack and carrier bag.

She would have liked to call DI Anderson as
she made her way down the road but couldn’t, she didn’t have his contact
number. The lack hadn’t occurred to her before then, let alone bothered her;
now she wondered what the best way for her to get in touch with the inspector
was.

Donna was distracted from thoughts of
contacting Anderson when she drew level with Michael Davis’ Land Rover.
Following an instinct she didn’t really understand she dropped the bags she was
carrying so she could search the vehicle. It didn’t take her long. She found
the bag Michael had filled with his sister’s belongings but didn’t bother with
it beyond a cursory search. The only thing of interest she found in the car was
a mobile phone; she assumed it was Michael’s but wasn’t certain, at least not
until she turned it on.

A search of the messages in the mobile
phone’s memory made it clear the phone was Michael’s. It also revealed that the
teen didn’t communicate with many people. According to the messages and call
log, he hadn’t spoken to anyone since the night he killed Danielle, which was
more than a week and a half previously.

Not sure how much use the phone would be,
Donna stuffed it into the same pocket as the list of names she had compiled.
She figured the inspector might get something from it, and if he didn’t, at
least she hadn’t ignored a possible clue.

*****

“There you are, Donna.”

Her attention was grabbed the moment she
walked past the hedge and turned onto her grandmother’s drive. Looking over she
saw her grandmother standing in the doorway.

“I was beginning to wonder where you had
gone. I saw your car but you were nowhere to be seen.”

“Sorry, Gran, I had some stuff to take care
of,” Donna apologised. Ignoring her car, she made her way round to the front
door. “I would have popped in to see you but I needed to speak to Jason about
something, and then I had to go up to the Davis farm to sort a few things out.”
As she spoke she followed her grandmother into the house and closed the door
behind them.

Evelyn Nelson didn’t say anything until they
were both in the living room, where she settled into her armchair. “I heard a
rumour that Michael Davis has escaped custody,” she said finally, once she had
made herself comfortable. “Is that true?”

Donna nodded.

“Is it also true that there are news crews
and a journalist in the village?”

Donna nodded again. It didn’t surprise her
that her gran knew so much of what was going on in the village. Her gran
usually only left the house to go to the shop or church, yet somehow she always
knew everything that was going on; certainly everything that was worth knowing.
What did surprise Donna was that her gran hadn’t called her to get confirmation
of what she had heard and been told.

“I think perhaps we should have a cup of tea
while you tell me everything that has happened this morning,” Evelyn said,
pushing herself back to her feet.

“I don’t imagine there’s much you don’t
already know,” Donna remarked. “But I won’t say no to a cup of tea.”

“And some biscuits, I’m sure.” Evelyn smiled
knowingly at her granddaughter.

Donna’s stomach rumbled in anticipation; she
hoped her grandmother had some cake to go with the biscuits. She wasn’t
disappointed.