The Winter Foundlings (17 page)

The first person I saw when we reached the crime scene was an Indian woman standing motionless on the snow, so unnaturally still that she looked like a statue. She was wearing a thin cotton tunic, nothing protecting her feet except a pair of bedroom slippers. Pete Hancock’s team was busy rushing in and out of her flat and she seemed to have been forgotten. I stood beside her, but she took a long time to notice me.

‘I’m not going indoors.’ Her voice was quiet but determined. ‘I’ll wait for her out here.’

‘Can you tell me what happened?’

The woman turned to face me, blank-eyed as a sleepwalker, her words spilling out on a wave of panic. ‘Something woke me around midnight, a noise from the street, but I went back to sleep. Amita’s bed was empty when I woke again.’

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Usha.’

‘And Amita’s your daughter?’

She nodded. ‘I adopted her two years ago.’

‘Does she have contact with her birth parents?’

‘They gave her up because of her diabetes,’ Usha said, shivering. ‘They couldn’t afford medication. That’s why I brought her back with me from India.’

‘Why don’t we go inside?’

‘I told you, I’m not moving till she comes home.’

I asked one of the SOCOs for a blanket and she didn’t even flinch when I draped it round her shoulders. She was too busy staring at the road.

When I looked back at the house, Burns was standing face to face with Tania, oblivious to everyone around them. She was thin as a mannequin in her expensive coat, and she seemed to be giving him a piece of her mind. I focused on Usha, still waiting beside me, refusing to move. The family liaison officer would need strong powers of persuasion to coax the poor woman back into the warm.

From a distance the house looked as though it had been refurbished recently; a tall Victorian terrace, windows and doors glossy with fresh paint. In this neighbourhood a flat in such a smart building would fetch half a million. I headed for the steps, hoping for a glimpse of the girl’s bedroom. Two SOCOs were dusting a ground-floor window, which hung wide open, pale curtains flapping in the breeze. Tania drew herself up to her full height and blocked the doorway.

‘There’s nothing to see, Alice. You can stay outside.’

Her expression hovered somewhere between distress and anger. She barged past before I could reply, so I peered through the window into the child’s bedroom. It was the picture of innocence. Daisies had been stencilled on the pale pink walls, a family of rag dolls clustered at the foot of the girl’s bed. Her duvet had been flung back, as though she’d jumped out of bed in a hurry, keen to start the day. The only sign of an intruder was the splintered wood where he’d jemmied the window.

Burns reappeared, with his phone clamped to his ear. He didn’t bother to look at me when he finally spoke. ‘I’m going to the station. The press are waiting for me.’

I didn’t envy him as I climbed into the passenger seat. The papers were already in a feeding frenzy. Their view seemed to be that losing one child was a misfortune, but more was a travesty. Now that a fifth girl was missing, they would be baying for a scapegoat. Their flashbulbs would catch every twitch of Burns’s discomfort when he made the announcement. I caught sight of Usha as his car pulled away, still rooted to the spot, gazing blankly at the road.

‘Tania’s in a hell of a state,’ he said. ‘There’s no point talking to her when she’s like that.’

I got the sense that he was apologising on his girlfriend’s behalf, and I didn’t bother to reply. The only thing that mattered was tracking down the child. After a few minutes I changed the subject.

‘You’re still holding Layton, aren’t you?’

Burns’s jaw tightened as he nodded. ‘For all we know there are two maniacs out there, stealing little girls.’

‘But the number of child abductions by strangers in the UK is fewer than ten a year. It’s more likely that Kinsella’s telling the truth. He found a partner in crime two decades ago and pre-planned the whole thing.’

‘If it’s the same killer, he met his deadline with a few seconds to spare. Amita was taken just before midnight.’

I met his eyes. ‘Layton told us Kinsella tried to brainwash him, but we don’t know how many more people he worked on. Prisoners he met, acquaintances, relatives.’

‘His family have all disowned him, except his wife,’ Burns said.

‘They would say that, wouldn’t they? Specially if they’re still following his instructions.’

‘Is brainwashing people really that simple?’

‘It’s easier than you’d imagine. Think about how cults operate. The leader has to be a charismatic and brilliant communicator like Kinsella. Then all it takes is time and conviction. Once your followers are loyal, you just keep ramming your messages home. A weak personality can be persuaded to do anything.’

Burns was too preoccupied to reply. A crowd of photographers pressed forwards as we reached the police station, and he positioned himself by the doors, flanked by two press officers. There was complete silence when he began to speak, apart from a stutter of apertures.

‘A five-year-old girl, Amita Dhaliwal, was reported missing from her home in north London at three a.m. this morning. We need to find her urgently. It’s possible that she’s being held by the same person who abducted Ella Williams. We want to hear from anyone who saw an unlicensed white van in the Caledonian Road area, in the early hours of this morning. Any information you give could help us find Amita.’

A few journalists called out to him, but Burns held up his hand. ‘There’ll be another briefing later today.’

The crowd gave a collective groan. My old nemesis, Dean Simons, was loitering at the back, the gutter press’s worst offender. But the injunctions I’d taken out must have worked their magic, because he kept his distance as I headed inside.

The staff in the incident room looked shell-shocked. A row of expressionless faces were manning the phones, a few more tapping information into computers, the rest huddled in groups, waiting for instructions. News of the girl’s abduction seemed to be the last straw, while the investigation staggered from bad to worse. An image of Amita Dhaliwal had already been pasted to the wall. It was a passport photo that had been enlarged to poster size, flashlight bleaching her skin to a washed-out grey, and it was easy to see how young she was, her cheeks plump with puppy fat. She was giving the camera a trusting smile.

I was still studying the girl’s face when Alan Nash swept into the incident room, and rushed past without acknowledging me. I focused on my notes for the team meeting. The girls’ home lives had begun to interest me – none of them was being raised in a conventional nuclear family. Maybe the killer had planned their abductions systematically, choosing which victims to target. I felt certain that he was following Louis Kinsella’s instructions to the letter, terrified of upsetting the master.

The briefing started as soon as Pete Hancock returned from the crime scene. He looked as taciturn as ever, taking his place in the front row without greeting anyone. Tania stood beside Burns with a pained expression on her face, as though she was desperate to go home. An audience of at least forty was packed into the incident room when the briefing started, and Burns’s Scottish accent had broadened by a few degrees. His expression suggested that his smile had deserted him permanently.

‘Amita Dhaliwal was taken from her bed in the middle of last night. She’s small for her age, and in poor health. The adoptive mother, Usha, is an accountant, raising the girl on her own. She says Amita’s diabetic. Without medication, she’ll slip into a coma inside forty-eight hours.’

The room fell silent. It didn’t take genius to guess that everyone was imagining what the mother was going through. Soon Burns was issuing orders for house-to-house, checking CCTV cameras, and discovering whether there had been previous attempts to break in to the flat. Once duties were assigned to each team, he called for everyone’s attention again.

‘Louis Kinsella warned us this abduction would happen. He predicted the date, and he said that the location would be further north than the others. Tomorrow a team of you are going to Northwood. The directors have given us permission to set up a mobile incident room there, so we can find out what else he knows.’

Alan Nash walked slowly to the front of the crowd, savouring the attention, and I watched in fascination. Charismatics often commit unspeakable actions, yet they can still light up a room. He made a steadying gesture with his hand and everyone fell silent.

‘Kinsella holds the key to these crimes, but so far we’ve failed to interview him correctly, and some of you have voiced your concerns. I can reassure you that from now on, I’ll be leading the psychological work at Northwood.’ Nash’s eyes were black and glistening, willing me to challenge him. ‘I promise to work round the clock to discover what he knows.’

At first I was too shocked to react, but then it sank in. Nash had gone out of his way to humiliate me. He was treating me like an incompetent novice, not a consultant psychologist who’d been practising for years. I felt like walking out immediately, but it wasn’t an option. I’d given Suzanne Williams my word that I’d find her sister, and I couldn’t let her down. I stared at Burns but failed to catch his eye. Maybe he agreed that I’d mishandled Kinsella and delayed the investigation. I sat there in silence, willing myself to keep calm.

23

The girl keeps screaming for her mother. Nothing seems to comfort her, and her face and hair are soaked with tears, fists flying in Ella’s direction, as though she’s to blame. All Ella can do is wait for the girl to finish yelling.

‘It’s okay,’ she murmurs. ‘We’ll get out of here, I promise.’

At last the girl falls silent and sits down abruptly. Her head lolls forward, revealing her face for the first time. She’s as small as the girls in kindergarten, wearing red pyjamas covered in teddy bears, the sleeves edged with braid. The girl yawns widely, tears still seeping from her eyes.

‘What are you called?’ she asks quietly. The girl meets her eye for the first time, but doesn’t say a word. ‘My name’s Ella.’

‘Amita,’ the girl whispers. ‘Please, let me go home. I want my mum.’

‘He’ll let us out soon, Amita. I know he will.’ Ella covers the girl’s bare foot with her hand. Her skin’s so cold, it’s like picking stones from a winter beach. ‘Come here,’ she says, holding out her arms.

Amita doesn’t move at first, but slowly she crawls over and rests her head on Ella’s shoulder. Her shivering is so intense that Ella wishes she had more to give than her warmth. The girl smells of home – the scent of bath-times, soap and clean clothes. After a few minutes she falls asleep, her head a heavy weight against Ella’s chest, but she doesn’t move her, hoping that rest will calm her down.

The man comes back before dawn, his boots making a shushing sound on the wet snow. Ella tightens her grip round Amita’s shoulder and she stirs in her sleep. Lamplight wakes her as it spills into the van, and her scream is deafening. The man’s face is furious.

‘Can’t you shut her up?’

‘I’m trying.’ Ella does her best to smile. ‘I’m sorry about before.’

The man stares straight through her, then throws a parcel into the van.

‘Get her into this,’ he snaps. ‘I’ll sort you out later.’

Ella reaches into the plastic bag and pulls out a piece of material. This time the white dress is tiny, as though it had been made for a doll. The man’s footsteps stamp away along the concrete path, and the girl’s screams soften into dull moans as Ella whispers to her.

‘Put this on, Amita. Then we can be twins, can’t we?’

24

The first thing I saw at the Laurels next morning was Usha Dhaliwal’s face. The eight a.m. news was blaring into the empty day room, and I paused to watch the bulletin. Shock had leached the colour from Usha’s skin, and the coat shrouding her shoulders looked far too big. One of the uniforms must have given her his jacket, then positioned her in front of the camera without helping her prepare. Her face contorted as she gazed at the camera, and the pitch of her voice was higher than before, rising with despair.

‘You can’t do this. Give her back, whoever you are. You have to understand that my daughter’s ill. She needs insulin. Let her go, please. She needs medical care.’

Her eyes screwed shut and someone put an arm around her, but the cameras carried on rolling as she wept. I jabbed the power button on the TV, and for once the day room fell silent. All of the victims’ families must be gripped by exactly the same sense of horror, but the case was making no progress, and I was partly to blame.

Burns was the last person I wanted to see when I got to my office. It looked like someone had parked an Easter Island statue in the middle of the corridor, huge and immovable. The ability to stay still was one of his best professional skills. I’d seen him play dead during interviews, so completely immobile that it looked as if he was starting to petrify. Faced with so much blank passivity, his suspects had no choice but to talk.

‘I owe you an apology,’ he said quietly. Burns didn’t seem to notice how minute the room was. There was less than a foot of clear air between us. I could have reached across and slapped his face with no effort at all.

‘You let him walk all over me, Don. Nash hasn’t lifted a finger since the investigation started. He’s just swanning about, waiting to collect the glory. You can apologise till you’re blue in the face, it won’t change a thing.’

He looked embarrassed. ‘Nash has got serious connections, Alice.’

‘So he’s a mason and he hangs out with the big boys. Why should I care?’

‘We need to back down gracefully.’

I stared at him open-mouthed. Burns’s interpretation of a graceful climb-down was my idea of a cowardly retreat, but there was no point in arguing, if the deal was done. ‘What have you agreed?’

‘I still want you involved,’ he said quickly. ‘The incident room’s being set up in the Campbell Building, so we can be near Kinsella. Nash is seeing him today. I’d like you to observe the interview.’

‘Kinsella will only talk to me.’

‘He’s sent a note to Dr Gorski, saying he wants to see Nash.’