Case One (5 page)

“Any shoes recovered on the road?” Woods asked Stafford.

Stafford shook his head. “No.”

“Okay,” Woods said to Holly. “I'll keep it in mind. Thanks.” He turned back to Stafford. “How many bodies have we got?”

“Just who's here, including the TPOs,” Stafford said. “They're supposed to be going off but I can assign them for a couple more hours.”

“Okay,” Woods said. “If you can look after the search, I'll go and see this friend of Ashleigh's, find out what she knows – okay if I take Miss Blades in case the girl's on her own?”

“You all right with that?” Stafford asked Holly. “Any reason you need to get back to the Section House?”

“No, Sarge, I'm fine,” Holly said, trying not to sound too pleased at the assignment.

“Okay, I'll entrust you to DS Woods's tender mercies. Know what I'm going to say next?”

Holly nodded. “Gob and ears, Sarge.”

“Right.”

11.

BOOTH RESIDENCE
ESCOTT ROAD
20:43 HRS

“Can you remember what time Ashleigh left here?” DS Woods asked.

On the sofa Lauren Booth sat with her hands wedged between her thighs, as if she didn't trust them not to shake if she removed them. She still seemed to be in shock from the news about Ashleigh and her mother had put a comforting arm round her shoulder.

“Just after six,” Lauren said dully. “We'd been watching telly.”

Holly saw Woods frown. He looked to Lauren's father. “Is that what you remember? Six o'clock?”

“I don't know,” Mr Booth said. He was about forty, and was standing by the fireplace. “I went out about ten to six. She was still here when I left.”

“It
was
about six,” Mrs Booth said. “I asked her if she wanted to stay for tea but she said no.”

“Okay.” Woods made a note, then looked back at her daughter. “Lauren, do you know if Ashleigh was intending to meet anyone on her way home?”

Lauren shook her head. “She was just going home.”

But there was something about the way she said it – just the faint hint of a hesitation before she spoke – that struck Holly as not quite right. She glanced at Woods and when he met her eye – just for a second – she knew he'd picked up on it, too.

“She didn't say she'd be stopping off anywhere?” Woods asked Lauren without missing a beat.

Lauren shook her head. “No.”

“Why's that matter anyway?” Lauren's father said then. “I mean, if she was knocked down…”

“We think there might be a bit more to it than that,” Woods said. “It's possible Ashleigh might have been assaulted before the accident.”

“You mean she was mugged or something?” Lauren's mother said, the note in her voice indicating it was almost too terrible a thing to contemplate.

“We're not sure of the details yet, but her bag is missing.”

“It's that bloody estate,” Mr Booth said. “I won't let Laurie go across it. They're all like wild dogs –  'specially the boys. You can see them, always hanging around on the corners.” He gestured off towards the window. “
I
wouldn't walk across there in the dark,” he said for emphasis.

DS Woods nodded. “Well, like I said, we're not sure what happened, but it would be helpful to know who Ashleigh's other friends are – anyone she might have seen or talked to on the way home.” He looked at Lauren. “Could you tell Holly do you think?”

“I suppose,” Lauren said.

“Great.” Woods looked to her parents. “I'd like to get a few more details from you, so would it be all right if they used the kitchen to talk?”

“It's a bit of a mess,” Mrs Booth said apologetically.

“Don't worry,” Holly said, taking her cue from the DS. “Can't be any worse than ours.”

She stood up and waited for Lauren to do the same – which she did, but without any enthusiasm.

Holly followed Lauren to the kitchen and closed the door behind them. As she did so Lauren turned to her directly, her face troubled and confused. “How badly hurt is she – really?” she asked.

“It is pretty serious,” Holly said, being careful not to say any more than DS Woods had already. She took out her pocketbook – the red one – and sat down at the small kitchen table.

“From the accident or…or from being mugged?”

“Mostly from the accident,” Holly said.

“Will I be able to see her? If I go to the hospital?”

“I think it'd be better to wait till tomorrow and call to find out. Her mum's with her though.”

Lauren shook her head as if it was all too hard to take in. She sat down on a chair. “I can't believe she's…that it's happened, you know? Just like that. She was here, we were watching TV and then…”

Holly nodded to show she understood. “Does Ashleigh come round here a lot after school?”

“Yeah, I suppose. Sometimes I go to hers. Dad doesn't like that as much though. He always comes to pick me up.”

“Because of the estate?”

Lauren nodded.

“But Ashleigh's mum's all right about her going home on her own?”

Lauren shook her head. “She doesn't like it either. But she can't do anything about it – they don't have a car.” She glanced towards the sitting room. “Dad should've taken her. I wanted him to, before he went out.”

Holly frowned. “Why? I mean, was there a reason why you wanted him to give her a lift today?”

“No,” Lauren said. “He just could've, that's all.”

Abruptly she stood up again and went over to the sink to run water into a mug.

“I hate it. I hate living round here,” Lauren said, turning back with the mug in her hand. “Crappy school, crappy shops, crappy everything.”

And then Holly knew for certain that Lauren was covering something. Changing the conversation like that was the sort of tactic she might have used to dodge questions from her mum.

“Listen, Lauren, this is important,” Holly said. “Was Ashleigh all right when she left here? Was there anything wrong?”

“No, I just said, didn't I?” Lauren's mouth set firm against giving anything else. “She was fine. I don't— No. She was fine.”

Holly took a beat. “Okay,” she said in the end. “Can you tell me the names of anyone else she was friends with?”

Outside the house a few minutes later DS Woods waited until they'd walked a few steps along the street before he said anything. In the meantime he blew his nose morosely.

Holly looked across the road towards the blocks of flats that rose in the darkness from the Cadogan Estate. Many of their windows were lit, but where the surrounding, lower buildings crowded in there were patches of darkness – areas that couldn't be made out – and a sense that if you went in there you'd better know where you were going and not linger on the way.

“So did you find out what was going on?” Woods asked when he'd finished wiping his nose.

“Not really, sir,” Holly said. “She wasn't telling the truth though – I mean, she wasn't telling everything she knows.”

Woods sniffed hard. “It's ‘Sarge', not ‘sir',” he said, but it was a throwaway comment, as if it wasn't important. “So
what
do you think she wasn't telling?”

Holly had been trying to work out the same thing.

“She told me she wanted her dad to give Ashleigh a lift home.”

“So?”

“It was the way she said it – like there was a reason – but I couldn't get her to tell me what it was.”

Holly was disappointed with her lack of success but Woods didn't appear too worried. “That's teenage girls for you,” he said without any trace of irony. “What about Ashleigh's other friends?”

“I got four names – all girls from school – but it didn't seem like they were close friends.”

“What about boys then – boyfriends?”

“No. I asked, but Lauren said Ashleigh didn't have one.”

“
Ever
had one?”

“No, it didn't sound like it.”

“Okay,” Woods said, keying the central locking on the car. “Well, at least we know what time she left here.”

“It's too early though, isn't it?” Holly said. “When Ashleigh texted her mum at twenty to seven, she made it look like she was only just leaving.”

Woods paused with his car door half open and gave her a look.

“You think Lauren and her mother got the time wrong?”

Holly shook her head. “No,” she said. “I think Ashleigh didn't want her mum to know where she was.”

“Any idea why? – Why do
you
lie to your mum?”

“I don't,” Holly said, feeling slightly embarrassed. Then she added: “Not unless I'm doing something I don't think she'd like.”

“So what's
that
tell you?” Woods said, and he got into the car.

12.

DRURY HOUSE
CADOGAN ESTATE
20:53 HRS

The beam of the Maglite torch cast moving shadows as Sam shone it into the corners of the stairwell. It illuminated discarded newspapers, chip trays and lager cans. Near his feet there were a couple of small syringes without needles. In other words, nothing.

Sam gave the concrete steps a final sweep of the torchlight, then backed out.

A few metres away PC Bob Mulvey was moving along a row of cars in the marked parking spaces below Drury House. He was shining his own torch between the vehicles in fast, jerky movements. Sam would have taken more time, but Mulvey seemed to be intent on covering the ground as quickly as possible – as if he was in a race and wanted to find the prize before anyone else beat him to it. The prize, of course, was the coat, shoes or bag belonging to Ashleigh Jarvis.

“Oi, copper. Lost your truncheon?”

The mocking shout came from high up on one of the balconies and ended in a laugh. Sam looked up but couldn't see anyone. That far away, the owner of the taunting voice knew he was safe.

The cold wind and the renewed threat of rain had cleared the streets and paths around the Cadogan Estate of all but a few people, none of whom came near as Sam quickened his pace to catch up with Mulvey. The PC was near the corner of the parking area now and, as Sam approached he gave the area a last cursory sweep with his torch before switching it off.

“Nothing here,” Mulvey said. “We'll try round there.” He gestured to the corner of a wall which hid the service area for the flats and started off towards it without waiting for Sam.

Mulvey wasn't a Trainer PC like Yvonne Dunlop, and Sam had only been assigned to him for the duration of this search, but he already disliked the PC's bossy, dismissive manner. A lot of regs didn't rate the TPO scheme very highly, but at least most of them would act as if the TPOs were sixteen and not six.

Flicking his torch on again, Sam ran it along the base of the wall as they moved. The brickwork was covered with dozens of graffiti tags, some harder to decipher than others, but one of the most common was
KB
in large block letters: Kaddy Boys. That was the gang you heard of most often when there was trouble on the Cadogan Estate.

Sam followed Mulvey around the wall to the rear of the tower block – a place of power plants, ventilation systems, bin stores and maintenance sheds. There was an overflowing skip and a council storage container in one corner, illuminated by a single street light. All the lamps on the walls had been smashed.

“Okay,” Mulvey said. “You start in there.” He gestured to a bin shelter. “I'll work round to meet you from over there.” And with that he headed off towards the skip.

Being away from Mulvey was fine with Sam. He raised his torch and carried it the way the other coppers did – gripped just behind the lens, handle resting on his shoulder so it could be swung down easily in self defence if necessary. Its weight was a comforting reassurance as he moved into the poorly lit entrance to the bin shelter.

The place smelled of rotting food and some things far worse, despite the cold weather. There was litter strewn underfoot and the light of the torch showed four commercial refuse bins, all taller than Sam was. Around them there were a couple of broken TV sets, a Hoover and other abandoned household goods.

Sam took all this in for a moment before moving further into the shelter. He was hidden from Mulvey's sight now and it wasn't a place he wanted to linger, but even so he made himself take time, probing the shadows round the bins with the torch, looking for anything that wasn't just someone else's discarded crap.

He saw the shoe first: black leather, the low-cut sort with a flat heel. It was near a sodden cardboard box and on its own it might have been easy to dismiss as part of the general rubbish. But as he moved closer to get a better look, the light of the torch caught something shiny nearby. And when he redirected the light, Sam saw the brightly coloured fabric and embroidered sequins of a shoulder bag, Indian in design.

His first instinct was to go further forward and pick the thing up, but he caught himself mid-step and stopped. He played the light over the bag one more time to make sure he wasn't seeing things then turned and started away.

Mulvey was looking round the skip twenty metres away when Sam called to him. He looked up, then came across quickly.

“What's up?” he said brusquely.

“In there,” Sam nodded. “There's a shoe and a bag – it fits the description we got.”

“Show me.”

Sam led the way back into the bin shelter, treading more carefully now, then located the shoe and the bag with his torch.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Mulvey stared for a moment. “Have you touched them?”

“No.”

“Right. Hold the light there.”

Sam did as he was told and Mulvey pulled a blue latex glove onto his right hand, then moved forward. When he got to the bag he squatted, then reached out to gently part the bag's opening and look inside. “There's a mobile,” he said.