To Catch a Rabbit (8 page)

Phil shook his head.

‘I’ll draw you a map.’ He led Phil further into the container where larger boxes were stacked one on top of another. ‘Make a start with these. Don’t know why he didn’t send you with a bigger van. Still, it’s his funeral if we don’t get it all shifted in time.’

Phil didn’t like to ask what the rush was. He was trying to work out what was in the boxes. At first he thought the picture on the side looked like a television, but then he realised they were microwave ovens. He stacked twelve of them in the back of the van, then lifted in the cases of drinks.

‘You better take some of these as well.’

The man was handing him four slimmer boxes. They were surprisingly heavy. He recognised the logo of the Intel processor. Early this morning he hadn’t been too bothered by crisps and fizzy drinks, but laptops were a different matter. Phil studied the hand-drawn map and realised the hut wasn’t far from Carole’s lock-up garage. He decided to do the high-end stuff first; the less time he spent near it, the better.

Just below the Humber Bridge, he pulled over to have a pee. On this stretch of mud, lapped by the Humber Estuary, fag butts and condoms joined a tidemark of dead algae and reed stalks. He sat for a moment facing the water and watched the seabirds swoop and dive into the shallows. He recognised the smaller black-headed gulls among the ugly sharp-eyed herring gulls, but his knowledge of ornithology ended there. His father had tried to teach him about birds on their walks up Telegraph Hill. They used to drive to the village of Lilley and then head out towards a spot on the map called Lilley Hoo. Always the same joke between them: knock, knock. Who’s there? Lily. Lily Who? Karen never came; she always stayed to look after Mum. That was his time with his dad. Once Phil hit his teens, he stopped going on the walks, he’d rather spend time with his friends or hide out in the dark fug of his bedroom. He couldn’t bear the idea that Holly would be like that one day, embarrassed to be seen out with her dad.

He flicked a new tape into the machine and moved back out into the traffic to the surprising sound of a country track he didn’t remember buying. A mournful female vocalist was singing about a tree that had stayed standing because it was strong enough to bend in the wind.

The female officer didn’t look up. ‘Take a seat.’

The officer pressed a buzzer and spoke into a microphone, without lifting her eyes from her paperwork. ‘Sean, can you get me a P879. Ta. He’ll be with you in a minute. Can I just take your name?’

‘Friedman, Karen Friedman.’

‘Can you spell that?’

Karen reached in her purse for a business card. ‘Here.’

The vinyl-covered bench hadn’t been cleaned in a while so she decided to remain standing. The heating seemed to be on full blast and there was a stench of sick mixed with bleach. She wished she hadn’t eaten so much or at least could have cleaned her teeth. The smell wasn’t mixing well with the lingering taste of bacon and sausage. She read the health and safety poster to keep her mind off it, then the Phone Frank poster and the Neighbourhood Watch leaflet, and was just starting on a leaflet about safe sex, when a young male officer appeared through a door to the side of the front desk.

‘Hi. My name’s Sean, I’m a Community Support Officer. You wish to report a missing person?’ He had a gentle smile which made it hard not to smile back.

‘Yes, please.’ It sounded so ridiculous, like saying please for an ice cream when you were a kid.

‘I’ll just ask you to fill out the form. Then one of my colleagues will book it on. Okay?’

She nodded.

‘Do you need any help with the form at all?’

His pitch gave the impression of the kind of customer-service training those girls in call centres go through, the ones that kept offering her a new mobile phone when she was trying to cook the dinner. He warned her to stick to the facts. Dates, name of person who last saw him, avoid guesswork. She guessed it was Johnny who saw him last, but it could have been anyone. She knew the date was the fifth of November. While she was watching the school firework display with Ben and Sophie, Phil had been… what? Getting on a plane to Florida with a woman he loved? Or something else.

‘I’m sorry Sean, I don’t know very much. But I’ve done physical description, the date and my contact details.’

‘Are you the next of kin?’ She should have said no, but she said yes. She felt shabby, as if she was cheating on Stacey. ‘Just tick the box and we’ll let you know if anything comes up.’

‘I’ve got a picture.’

She opened her handbag and carefully took out a photo of Phil, taken in her father’s garden. Her brother was standing next to a miniature weeping cherry tree, which Reg had planted when Phil was born. He used to take the same picture every year, showing how much faster Phil had grown than the tree. This one was taken nearly two years ago. Reg had sent it to Karen with a note to say the tree was finally catching up.

‘You’ll have to blow it up, make the face a bit clearer,’ she said.

‘We’ll see what we can do. The Missing Person’s Unit might do a poster. If not I’ll get something up around the station, make sure everyone’s keeping an eye out.’

He took the photograph and was checking through the form when an overweight, red-faced man burst through the door behind them.

‘Ah, Percy. You’ll do. Can’t find a constable for love nor money.’

The desk officer mumbled something and nodded in Karen’s direction. She showed him the business card.

‘Migrants’ advice? This to do with that Chinese girl?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘It’ll have to wait. Bit short staffed up here, so now I have to come in on a Sunday to sort out the mess.’

There was an awkward silence, which was broken by the community support officer. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mrs Friedman, I’ll ask my colleague to book this on. We’ll be in touch…’

‘That can wait, Percy,’ the fat man said.

‘It’s Denton, sir. Sean Denton.’

‘I know. You come with me. The farmer who owns the land behind the lay-by just phoned back, finally. He’s been in Doncaster Infirmary for the past six weeks, hip replacement gone nasty. It’s on your manor, so you can navigate. I’ll pick you up round the front in two minutes, with the scene-of-crime report, if that’s not too much bother.’

‘Right!’ The poor lad jumped up so fast that he dropped his clipboard and Phil’s picture slid away across the floor. ‘Sorry, I’m so sorry.’ Panic stricken, he gathered everything together, then turned to Karen. ‘Sorry about Burger, he’s a bit…’

‘Of an arse?’ That cheered him up. The soft smile was back. ‘Why Burger? Except the obvious.’

‘King. DCI Barry King.’

‘What did he mean about a Chinese girl?’

‘Oh.’ He seemed to be blushing. ‘It’s just we found…I found…a body. I sort of thought, when you said missing person, that you might have been looking for her.’

‘I see. And your boss, Burger? Why
did
he think I was looking for her?’

‘Just trying to put two and two together I suppose, and you do look sort of official. For round here anyway.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, I think.’

Sean looked relieved.

‘I just can’t believe no-one’s missing her.’ He said sadly and then seemed to gather himself. ‘We’ll be in touch. Or, call us, you know, if you need anything, or if he turns up, obviously.’

Karen didn’t want him to go. She touched his arm.

‘Look, your Chinese girl, maybe I can help? I could make some enquiries. The guy I work for helps young women who’ve been trafficked into the UK. Do you think she could have been?’

‘It’s possible.’ The young man spoke quickly, as if the fat detective might suddenly reappear and shout at him. ‘She was a prostitute.’ He looked towards the door and it seemed for a moment as if he was going to tell her something else, but a car horn sounded in the street and he was gone.

Sean got out and pressed the buzzer on the intercom. A reedy voice answered and finally the gates swung open.

‘It’s a bit Addams family.’ He started to hum the tune, tapping it out on the glove box. Burger sighed and Sean went quiet.

The drive snaked behind the houses and their postage-stamp gardens until suddenly they were passing open fields. Sean counted at least three security company brand names, alerting intruders to CCTV, dogs and the certainty of prosecution if they trespassed. After a quarter of a mile, they turned on to a wide sweep of gravel in front of a large modern house with a white-pillared porch.

‘Right, my turn,’ said Burger. ‘Name this tune. Tah-tah, na-na-na-na-na-naah! Ta-da! Remember that? No? Too bloody young.’ Sean shrugged. ‘Dynasty, you fool! Bugger me, no culture, the young. Let’s see if Joan Collins is waiting for us in the bathtub.’

As they got out of the car, a frail old man appeared on the porch leaning on an aluminium walking stick. A crumpled remembrance poppy was stuck at a skewed angle on his lapel. Inside the house a frantic dog was barking.

‘Come in. I’ll get the kettle on. You lads look like you need a cup of tea.’

Inside, Sean caught his breath. The stench of urine, possibly human, mingled with cigarette smoke and wet animal. A line of yellowing newspaper led across the carpet from the hall to the kitchen. The dog continued to bark.

‘Christ Almighty,’ Burger muttered. ‘I’m going to need my inhaler if we stay too long in here.’

‘I think I’ll give the tea a miss,’ Sean whispered back.

It wasn’t that easy. Mr Mayhew insisted on being the perfect host and Sean found himself stirring a cracked mug of milky brown liquid, trying to break down the buttery lumps floating on the surface. Burger asked about the snack bar trailer but Mr Mayhew had launched into his life story, which included the amazing good fortune of being offered what he called ‘silly money’ to sell half his land for housing.

‘Sold all the cows, no money in milk, I saw it coming. Gave up on pigs. I lease a couple of chicken sheds out to a fellow from Epworth. So long as he pays on time, that’s all right by me. Knocked the old farmhouse down and built this. Then the wife died. My son keeps telling me I should move out, but he’s just after the money, so he can bugger off.’

‘The field, Mr Mayhew, up by the ring-road.’ Burger took his time, as if he was speaking to a child. ‘Remember? We left a couple of messages while you were in hospital.’

‘Meant to be a straightforward hip replacement, but then I got pneumonia and that MRSA.’ He broke into a cough.

‘There was a trailer up there. A sort of van, someone was living in it.’ Burger said, as soon as the farmer had caught his breath.

‘Potatoes. Don’t bother myself with them. It’s leased out.’

‘To the man from Epworth?’

‘No, he’s chickens. It’s the other fellow. Never see him. When we built this house, we cut another road through. The old farm track comes out by the quarry. Didn’t want a load of muck past the new house. Had enough of it all me life.’

Sean could hear Burger’s breath getting shorter. ‘You all right, sir?’

He nodded. ‘Need a bit of fresh air. Get a name, a number if you can. Excuse me.’ He got to his feet and stumbled back through the hall to the front door.

‘He all right?’ The old man seemed unfazed by DCI King’s departure.

‘Bit of asthma.’

A huge ball of black and white fur was settled on a pile of newspapers on the kitchen surface. It opened its eyes and stared at him.

‘Mr Mayhew,’ Sean pulled his gaze away before the animal hypnotised him, ‘there was a snack bar van, with red writing. The model was called a Motorchef, it was on your land.’

‘Yes, with a dead girl, one of your fellers said so on the phone. Bit odd that. I’ve never had anyone pay rent on that field for a snack bar van. I’ve got a little caravan, of course, for the ones that do the picking. The wife and I bought it for holidays. Had lovely orange curtains, she made them herself. We keep it out the back.’ He sighed. ‘Used to be gypsies, now it’s all foreigners. Don’t have their own accommodation, that’s the drawback, so we have to lay it on. Motorchef did you say?’

‘Yes sir, does that ring any bells?’

‘No. Sounds like a place you’d get on the motorway, not on the Chasebridge bypass.’

Sean asked if he could have a look outside. Mr Mayhew walked painfully to the back door to unlock it, but it was stuck in the frame. As Sean tugged it free, cobwebs broke apart and a spider ran for cover. He took a few steps on to the overgrown lawn and looked out at the remains of the farm. The wind seemed to blow straight at him, carrying the smell of chicken shit from a low shed beyond a derelict barn. There was no caravan.