The Winter Foundlings (6 page)

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Sarah’s last days. The vehicle could have been parked anywhere, while snow fell outside, the cold gradually weakening her screams. There were millions of houses in London with gardens big enough to conceal a van from prying eyes.

‘Tell me more about Ella. Does she live with her parents?’

‘Just her sister and granddad. Her dad cleared off to Spain the year after she was born, then her mum died of breast cancer two years ago.’

I gazed at the council estates we were passing on Pancras Way. It sounded like the Williams family had already dealt with too much bad luck, and when Burns pulled up outside Alan Chalmers House, my sympathy deepened. The apartment building had seen better days. It was six storeys high, bricks weathered to a dull brown, right beside the arterial road. The residents must fall asleep to a lullaby of night buses grinding south from Holloway. Freezing winds had flayed paint from the front doors, splintering the exposed wood. I followed Burns across a layer of ice. The snow had refrozen so many times we’d have been safer on skates. It was easy to tell which of the ground-floor flats belonged to the Williams family from the press camping outside. Photographers stood in gaggles, long-lens cameras dangling from their necks. In addition to their ordeal, the family would have to run the media gauntlet every time they went outside.

Burns marched through the crowd without responding to the reporters’ barrage of questions. The flat was on the ground floor, and there was a mat by the entrance with the word ‘Welcome’ woven across it in bright red. He squared his shoulders when he rang the doorbell, composing himself like a method actor. Half a dozen cameras clicked in unison the moment Ella’s grandfather opened the door. His skin was the colour of parchment, grey hair arranged in an untidy quiff, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. Two facts about his flat were inescapable as soon as we stepped inside: someone had conducted a colour experiment on every wall, and there was a fug of smoke lingering in every room. The atmosphere contained more carbon than oxygen, windows sealed against the cold.

Mr Williams led us along the fuchsia pink hall into the living room. His teenaged granddaughter was slumped on the settee, chestnut curls scraped back from her face. Her resemblance to Ella was striking. She had the same freckled complexion, eyes hidden behind round-framed glasses. Her eyes were so glazed she didn’t seem to notice that two strangers had walked into the room. I noticed a Christmas tree standing in a bucket in the corner, still wrapped in plastic netting. The girl’s eyes met mine for a second then slid away.

‘Suzanne won’t say much,’ the old man said. ‘The doctor gave her tranquillisers.’

I wondered how much Valium she’d swallowed. She was still in her dressing gown, struggling to stay awake. The lime green wall behind her seemed ridiculously cheerful, but the rest of the room was chaotic, with magazines and copies of the
Racing Times
piled on every surface. A mound of ironing on the table formed a haystack of crumpled T-shirts and jeans.

‘Is there any news?’ Mr Williams’s eyes fixed on Burns.

It was the first time I’d seen him look hopeful. The prospect of his grandchild coming home had forced him out of bed that morning, and dragged him through the motions of a normal day, while Suzanne came apart at the seams. His face grew bleak again when Burns admitted there was no new information. The emotional roller-coaster he’d been riding since Friday was unimaginable.

‘Could I see Ella’s room please, Mr Williams?’ I asked.

He stared back at me, and I could tell what he was thinking. Why should he let yet another official poke through the girl’s belongings? But eventually he led me along the hall, and it was a relief to escape into cleaner air.

I’d been expecting another outlandish colour scheme, and clothes scattered across the floor, but Ella Williams’s bedroom was immaculate. The walls were painted cream, with drawings neatly tacked to a pin-board. There was a desk in the corner, piled with school books, and a Philip Pullman novel on the bedside table. It looked like an adult’s room with miniaturised furniture. I stood by Ella’s desk and leafed through one of her schoolbooks. The pages were littered with ticks and gold stars, and her drawings were equally impressive. One showed a giant tree, taller than the skyscrapers around it, almost touching the clouds. The tree was incredibly lifelike, each leaf picked out in different shades of green, the gnarled trunk fractured with age. Very few ten-year-olds could have conjured up anything so beautiful.

When I got back to the lounge, Burns was dispensing comfort as usual, Suzanne crying quietly into one of his outsized hankies.

‘You’re very close to your sister, aren’t you?’ I said quietly.

‘She’s amazing. I always tell her she’s got twice my brains.’ Suddenly Suzanne’s eyes regained their focus, glittering with panic. ‘Please, you have to find her.’

The intensity of her stare disturbed me. The girl grabbed my hand so tightly I could feel her nails cutting into my palm.

‘I’ll do everything I can, I promise.’

Her gaze bored into me, as though she was testing my resolve. Burns must have sensed my discomfort because he asked her another question. ‘Do you know anyone with a van or a lorry, Suzanne?’

‘Just the caretaker at Ella’s school, Mr Layton. Why?’

‘We’re checking out some details.’ He gave a brief smile then rose to his feet.

When she realised we were leaving, Suzanne’s shoulders slumped again, eyes half closed. Her grandfather showed us to the door with yet another roll-up dangling from his lip, puffing on it like a vital oxygen supply.

I turned to Burns as soon as we reached the car. ‘Very clever, Don.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Meeting Ella’s sister won’t help me profile her abductor. You brought me here to make me commit. Now I’ve seen her family, I can’t walk away. You’re turning into a shrink, aren’t you?’

Burns held up his hands, making no attempt to deny it. A smile appeared at the corners of his mouth as he began to drive. The journey from Alan Chalmers House back to the police station took five minutes. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts for the team briefing, so I studied the shop windows, packed with tacky Christmas decorations. At least the view stopped me worrying about Suzanne Williams’s fragile state of mind. It would shatter like a pane of glass if her sister wasn’t returned home safe and sound.

*   *   *

Professor Alan Nash was holding court in the incident room when we arrived, and the smile he threw me was lukewarm. His hair was greyer than before, but he hadn’t lost his talent as a crowd pleaser. He was dressed like a country gentleman, his tweed jacket and dark shirt designed to hide a growing paunch. Nash was explaining the importance of his work with Kinsella – his approach had changed the nature of forensic interviewing forever. Most of the group seemed genuinely impressed, but a few looked sceptical. The Met has a low tolerance for bragging. Most coppers believe in keeping quiet and letting other people congratulate them when the job’s done.

I recognised most of the investigation team. Pete Hancock, the chief crime scene officer, nodded at me. His black monobrow was still hovering half an inch above his eyes, making it impossible to judge whether he was thrilled or suicidal. Tania Goddard had already positioned herself so close to Burns that it looked like she had a secret to confide. Her appearance was as immaculate as before, her dress accentuating every curve. Millie, one of the family liaison officers from the Angel case, gave me a long-suffering smile as she greeted me. We chatted for a few minutes, then she nodded towards Burns and Tania and rolled her eyes.

‘Those two couldn’t care less about the case,’ she whispered.

‘I thought they were working flat-out.’

‘They’re too loved up to concentrate on anything. It’s common knowledge they’re seeing each other. She’s all over him.’

I was too stunned to say a word; the idea of Burns starting a relationship with a cool customer like Tania took a huge leap of the imagination. Fortunately the briefing was just about to start so I didn’t need to reply.

The atmosphere in the room felt tense. Cases that involve children always generate their own type of gloom: the media attention is relentless, and the victims’ families are like a Molotov cocktail. A single badly chosen phrase can light the touchpaper and trigger an explosion. Burns and Tania were standing side by side, like a well-rehearsed double act, but she receded into the background when he began to speak.

‘Let’s review where we are. Kylie Walsh was abducted eleven months ago, then Emma Lawrence three weeks later. The killer washed the bodies, dressed them in white, then hid them in a freezer before dumping them. Sarah Robinson was abducted from St Paul’s Crescent in Camden on the thirtieth of November, around five thirty in the afternoon, on her way to the corner shop to buy bread for her mum. A neighbour on his way back from work saw a white van driving too fast along the street. We spent the next eighteen days on door-to-door, and going through the sex offenders’ register. Her body was found early on Monday, outside the Foundling Museum, and that could be significant. The place was London’s first orphanage.’

Tania carried on without a pause, as though the script was prearranged. ‘Ella Williams’s grandfather was late picking her up from her school in Camden last Friday. The school caretaker is our last eyewitness. He says he saw her from his window, waiting by the gates. One of her shoes was found on St Augustine’s Road, close to the school. This time a white Ford transit was spotted on CCTV, with no number-plates.’ A blurred black-and-white image of the van speeding down a car-lined road appeared on the wall. It had no identifiable dents or scratches, but the roof and bonnet were grimed with dirt, the driver’s face hidden by shadows.

Burns rose to his feet again. ‘There are strong links with the serial killer, Louis Kinsella. He took his last victim on the same day that Kylie Walsh disappeared, tagged his victims and dressed them in white. He was a trustee at the Foundling Museum, where Sarah’s body was found, and he used to be headmaster at Ella Williams’s school.’ He paused to scan the room, then held up a transparent evidence bag containing a scrap of electric blue material, criss-crossed by a thread of yellow ribbon. ‘This was sent to Kinsella on Saturday at Northwood psychiatric prison, from a central London postmark. The lab’s checking for fingerprints and DNA. The fabric was cut from the dress Sarah was wearing, and we’ll know tomorrow if this is her hair.’

I looked more closely at the evidence bag and suppressed a shiver. The yellow strand pinned to the cloth was human hair, not ribbon. For the first time the killer had sent a love token direct to Louis Kinsella, letting him know his campaign was continuing.

‘Two forensic psychologists are working with us. Professor Alan Nash is in charge, and Alice Quentin’s working at Northwood. She’ll be our main point of contact with Louis Kinsella.’ Burns nodded at Nash, inviting him to speak.

Nash’s body language reminded me of veteran actors like Jeremy Irons and Richard Gere, still sublimely convinced that they’re sexy. He strutted to the front of the room, as though the women around him were hanging on his every word. And it’s fascinating how potent self-belief is. Most of the faces round the table looked intrigued when he began to speak.

‘Anyone who knows my book
The Kill Principle
will remember that Louis Kinsella has always claimed that someone will continue his mission. He didn’t give a date, but he did time at Pentonville, Brixton, and Highpoint before ending up at Northwood fifteen years ago. There’s an outside chance that his follower is just a lonely obsessive who’s done his research, but it’s likely to be someone who’s spent time in his orbit. You’ll need to chase down every one of Kinsella’s contacts since before his arrest.’ Nash held up his hands and beamed, as if he was embarrassed by so much admiration. ‘I know it’s asking a lot, but we have to use every fact at our disposal.’

‘Thanks for that, Alan.’ Burns was on his feet again. ‘Would you like to add anything, Alice?’

Nash shook his head decisively before I could speak. ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary at this stage.’

I was too stunned by his rudeness to say a word. Burns shot me an apologetic look and carried on with his briefing, but I seethed quietly as he gave out instructions. He wanted the school caretaker’s Luton van checked, inmates from Kinsella’s prison days interviewed, and checks run on former employees at St Augustine’s School. I stared at the two items the exhibits officer had placed on her evidence tray: the scrap of material from Sarah Robinson’s dress, and Ella Williams’s red patent leather shoe, shining so brightly it looked brand new. I was still gazing at the objects when Alan Nash appeared at my side. His smile flicked on but there was no warmth behind it.

‘I read the reviews of your last book, Alice; my star student seems to be making quite a name for herself. I’m looking forward to working with you.’

‘Me too, Alan. But I’d prefer not to be silenced in future.’

He took a step closer, his smile unwavering. A waft of sickly aftershave enveloped me, and I noticed the veins littered across his cheeks like strands of purple cotton. ‘You’re my assistant on this case, Alice. I think it’s important you remember that, don’t you?’

Anyone watching us would have seen two colleagues exchanging pleasantries, but his stare was colder than the air outside. He strutted out of the room on a wave of arrogance, and I could guess why he was making covert threats. This was his last chance of glory, and he was hell-bent on establishing his reputation as the pre-eminent star of forensic psychology. There was no way on God’s earth that anyone was going to steal his thunder.

The room had almost emptied. Only Burns and Tania Goddard were left behind, and they were too absorbed to notice me. Her hand rested on his shoulder while they peered at a report, her face inches from his, and he was making no attempt to move away. Millie had been right after all – Burns had found himself a girlfriend. I stuffed my notebook into my bag, gave an excuse about an urgent meeting, then stumbled out of the door.