The Child Taker & Slow Burn (27 page)

“They’re not here, Grace,” Tank sighed. He was about to speak again when the meth lab exploded and blew him off his feet.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Cheshire, two weeks later

Sylvia looked through her car window and sucked deeply on her cigarette, savouring the soothing smoke as it filled her lungs. The rain was hammering down on the roof of her vehicle and it added to the feeling of melancholy that she had felt since this investigation had begun. She had joined the police force because she felt that she could make a difference, but this time around she had felt totally useless. Despite the fact that she had given Major Timms and his team a lead on the paedophile website, it had not helped to recover the twins. Granted, four children and a toddler had been saved from hideous abuse and death, but the twins had vanished into thin air. John Tankersley had tracked the paedophiles to their lair and rescued the children, but the building had been totally destroyed in the process, and any evidence that it contained had been lost beneath tons of concrete, and twisted steel reinforcement bars. Forensics teams were sifting through the debris piece by piece, but it would take months to recover anything useful. The Moroccans had shut down everything they owned in the United Kingdom and gone into hiding. There was simply nothing left to trace which could lead them to the twins. Sylvia doubted very much if they were still alive, although she never told Hayley that.

Through the torrential rain, she watched Steve Kelly opening his front door and then staggering down the steps of his townhouse onto the pavement. He looked like he hadn’t washed or shaved for a week. Sylvia sucked on the cigarette, stubbed it out, and opened her car door.

“Steve,” she shouted to him as she stepped out and slammed the car door.

“Leave me alone,” Steve slurred. He stumbled and fell onto his knees. “Now look what you made me do,” he mumbled as he tried to get up.

“I need to talk to Karl, Steve,” Sylvia said. She grabbed his arm and pulled him up. “Is he in?”

“Get lost.” Steve tried to push her off him but he only managed to knock himself backwards onto the soaking wet pavement, banging his rump hard as he fell.

“How much have you had to drink?” Sylvia grabbed his hand and pulled him up onto unsteady legs.

“Not enough thanks, now get lost.” Steve wobbled, made an about turn, and then set off back towards his front door.

“Is Karl in?” Sylvia repeated.

“No, he’s gone fishing in the Lake District,” Steve sneered. Sylvia thought it strange that he would return to the Lakes when his kids were still missing. Steve slid his key into the lock on the fourth attempt, and he tumbled into his hallway as the door opened. Sylvia waited on the stone steps for a moment, rain pouring down her face and neck.

“When did he go to the Lakes?” Sylvia asked as she followed Steve into his mock brownstone terrace. Steve stumbled down the hallway and crashed into a doorframe before entering his living room. It looked untidy to Sylvia. Half-empty take away cartons were strewn across the floor. The carpet hadn’t been vacuumed for a week at least, and there was an ashtray overflowing onto an expensive glass coffee table in the centre of the room. There was no way a woman had been here for days.

“I can’t remember,” Steve mumbled. He collapsed onto a black leather armchair

“Where’s Louise?”

“Working away, she’s on a course,” Steve mumbled, but his face told another story.

“Where?”

“Where what?”

“Where is Louise working away?”

“What the fuck has it got to do with you?”

“I’m finding it odd that Karl has gone fishing when his kids are missing and your wife is working away at the same time, and looking at the state of you I think you find it odd too.” Sylvia crossed her arms and glared at him.

“I guess you’ve been talking to Hayley, silly bitch, thinks Karl is screwing everything that walks,” Steve protested.

“No, Hayley doesn’t think that he sleeps with everything that walks, but she does think that he’s screwing your wife, Steve.” She went for the jugular.

              “Well if it makes you feel any better, Detective, if I’m really honest with you then I think that he’s screwing my wife too.” He stuck out his tongue like a petulant child, but Sylvia could see the pain in his eyes.

“How long have you suspected this?” She asked softly.

“I don’t know. I didn’t believe it at first. Well, you wouldn’t, would you?” He smiled a haunted smile. “I mean, your own brother, would you believe it?”

“Stranger things happen, Steve,” Sylvia replied.

“Not to me, not to good old boring sensible Steve.” He lit a cigarette with a shaking hand, and breathed in deeply. “Maybe that’s why she’s looking elsewhere, because I’m boring?”

“Have you spoken to Louise about it?”

“Of course I have, do you think I’m stupid?” Steve was beginning to get annoyed.

“And what did she say about it?” Sylvia sat down opposite him.

“She said I’m being paranoid.” Steve slouched in his chair and pulled on the cigarette again. Ash tumbled down his shirt. “Karl says that I’m being paranoid, but then what else would they say?”

“Do you think you’re being paranoid?”

“I think that you should fuck off and leave us alone, that’s what I think.”

“This is serious, Steve, where is she?”

“None of this would have happened if you lot hadn’t come sniffing around, blaming Karl for taking his own children.”

“You’re hampering a police investigation, Steve,” she persisted. 

“Ooh, are you going to arrest me, Sherlock?” Steve muttered.

“I might do, Steve, where is she?”

“Dublin,” Steve mumbled.

“Pardon?”

“She’s working in Dublin, you know, the capital of Ireland,” Steve sneered sarcastically.

“Have you got her hotel details?”

“What is your problem?”

“I need to speak to her and Karl.” Sylvia pushed the point. Steve stood up and staggered over to the telephone. He pressed redial on the handset and a ringing tone sounded.

“Here, ask for Louise Kelly, room three two five,” Steve said very slowly, labouring the issue.

“Hello, Dublin Hilton, how can I help?” A woman with a Polish accent answered.

“Could you put me through to room three two five?” Sylvia asked. She picked up a dirty sock from the settee with the tips of her fingers, and twirled it in her free hand. Something wasn’t right.

“Hello,” a voice answered.

“Louise Kelly?”

“Yes speaking,” Louise sounded surprised.

“Louise, it’s Constable Sylvia Lees, here, I’m with your husband Steve, and I need to speak to Karl urgently,” Sylvia went out on a limb trying to provoke a response.

“I suggest you call him on his mobile then. Why are you calling me, have they found the twins?”

“No, they haven’t, I’m sorry to bother you.” Sylvia hung up and stared at the sock and the overflowing ashtray. She guessed that Louise had been gone a while, and Steve was in some kind of denial. There was a picture of Louise and Steve in happier times on the pine bookcase next to Sylvia’s chair. Louise looked stunning: jet-black hair, deep brown eyes and tanned skin. Her smile revealed perfect white teeth, which added to her model looks.

“She’s a pretty woman, your wife,” Sylvia commented. Steve shook his head and closed his eyes. Tears formed and he rubbed at them angrily. “Where was this photo taken?”

“At a restaurant in Chester,” Steve sniffled.

“Oh, I thought it was abroad somewhere, as she looks really tanned,” Sylvia said.

“She had just come back from a girlfriend’s hen do in Tenerife,” Steve answered, looking longingly at the picture of his beautiful wife. He stubbed his cigarette out and lit another one immediately. Sylvia noticed that his index finger was turning yellow, stained with nicotine, a sign that he was chain smoking. 

“How did Louise get to Dublin?”

“Canoe,” Steve sneered. He sniffled and then wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“Have you spoken to your brother since he left for his fishing trip?”

“Karl is in the Lakes, where mobile phone signals are like gold dust. I told you that my wife is in Dublin, and you have phoned my wife to see if she is actually in Dublin, and guess what, she is indeed in Dublin, just like I told you, now what more do you want, Sherlock!” Steve shouted sarcastically. 

“I’d drink some coffee if I were you,” Sylvia said as she left the room. She opened the front door and paused before stepping out into the pouring rain.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Wolverhampton

DS Will Naylor sat in the rear passenger seat of a Nissan Navarra. The dark pick-up truck was travelling south on the M6 at ninety miles an hour, flanked by two armed response units and a minibus full of Tactical Response officers. The evening sun was fading away, and a half-moon was rising as the blue turned to grey and stars appeared on the horizon.

“I don’t understand where all this has come from,” the DS said, confused. He looked at the large satellite navigation screen built into the dashboard, and read that they were nearing Wolverhampton. Alec had rushed him into the vehicle, promising to explain everything on the way. On the way to where, he didn’t know. “Where are we going?”

Alec looked at Will in the rear view mirror. Sylvia Lees sat in the front passenger seat. “Sylvia went to see Karl at his brother Steve’s house on a routine visit, as part of her family liaison duties,” Alec explained. Sylvia twisted her body on the grey leather seat so that her shoulders were facing Alec. “When she got to his brother’s house, he was drunk and obviously upset about something. Sylvia said that from the condition of the house it looked as if Steve had been on a bender for a week or more.”

“It didn’t look right to me.” Sylvia carried on the explanation. “Louise was in Dublin, working away, and coincidentally Karl was allegedly fishing in the Lakes on his own.” Alec indicated left and the Navarra moved over onto the slip road which would take them off the motorway towards the city of Wolverhampton.

“Okay, so you were suspicious that the affair is in fact a reality?” Will asked.

“Right, but not only that,” she laughed. “Because I was convinced that Karl’s behaviour has been unusual, to say the least, I went to see Hayley and got some details about Karl’s work and social life recently. I found out where Karl usually stays when he’s fishing, and I checked all the hotels that he would normally use and the campsites around them, and I came up with nothing.” 

“So you think that he’s in Dublin?” Will asked, still confused.

“She did, but she couldn’t get access to the airport and ferry manifests without a warrant, and so she contacted John Tankersley, because she knows that he can,” Alec added. “He ran all the checks and we’re convinced that there has been no Karl Kelly travelling to Ireland in the past few weeks, but guess what?”

“Louise Kelly has been coming back into the country from Dublin?” Will  guessed.

“No, but Louise Scolari has flown budget airline from Dublin to Wolverhampton twice in the last week,” Sylvia said.

“Scolari is her maiden name?” Will asked.

“Correct,” Alec added. The Nissan navigated a huge roundabout and he followed a brown sign that took them onto a narrow minor road. The brown sign had the picture of a boat on it. 

“With a name like Scolari, I’m guessing her parents were Italian?” Will was racking his brains to understand where this was going.

“Her father was Italian, her mother was Moroccan,” Alec filled in the details. “And she was born in Marrakesh.”

“We know for an absolute fact that Jack Howarth or Alfie Lesner took the twins, I just can’t see anything past that,” Will said stubbornly. “Why are we going on a wild goose chase?”

      “Sylvia saw a photograph of Louise and her husband. She was tanned and he wasn’t – Steve said that she had been on a girlfriend’s hen do in Tenerife, but when Sylvia checked up with the friend she told her that Louise hadn’t gone on the trip. She had fallen out with Louise over the fact that she pulled out at the last minute. Louise told Steve that they had fallen out on the Tenerife trip because the bride to be was being a little too frivolous with other men. They didn’t go to the wedding, and so there were no uncomfortable questions to answer about not going to Tenerife.”

“What’s the significance of that?” Will shrugged.

“Louise Scolari bought a flight from Manchester airport to Marrakesh, and guess who else was on that flight?” Alec said. He caught Will’s eyes in the rear view mirror, and he could see him processing the information.

“Karl?”

“Correct,” Sylvia said.

“What did he tell Hayley?”

“Golf trip to Marbella,” Alec replied.

“She remembered him acting weird, and she remembered him bringing presents back for the twins. None of the presents had anything to do with Marbella,” Sylvia added quietly.

“We think that they went to Marrakesh to arrange for the twins to be kidnapped via relatives of Louise in Marrakesh,” Sylvia said. “We think that Jack Howarth was employed by the Moroccans to capture the twins. Karl was planning to leave Hayley, and he was terrified that she wouldn’t let him see the twins.” 

Will nodded and turned to look out of the window. “There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ in this.” The industrial city of Wolverhampton was sprawled out behind them and the countryside was opening up in front of them. “Why here, why in Wolverhampton?”

“The police found the body of Alfie Lesner at an industrial unit near Crewe, situated on the Shropshire Union canal. We checked credit card transactions with all marinas in the area, and we found an eight berth narrow boat that has been paid for by—”

“Louise Scolari,” Will interrupted; his voice was acidic. Karl’s bank transactions had all been checked thoroughly as a routine part of the investigation. It had to be Louise that had paid for it, and she had to have used her maiden name to avoid any obvious connections being made. “The canal network is the ideal place to keep the twins out of the public’s gaze.”

“It is, and all the hire boats are chipped for GPS tracking, to stop vessels being stolen. We know exactly where the boat is, fingers crossed that we’re right, Will,” Alec said.

They travelled in nervous silence for the next twenty minutes along the road running parallel to the canal. Brightly painted longboats were dotted along the banks, some covered and empty and others lit up like Christmas, with smoke coming from their chimneys.

“We’re here.” Alec pulled the Nissan into a gravel car park and the white stones crunched beneath the wheels. The sun was nearly gone and electric lights, paraffin lamps and candles illuminated the occupied narrow boats in the marina. There was an array of different hues and colours coming from inside the vessels. They climbed out of the Navarra and Alec locked the pick-up with his remote. A small curved footbridge took them over the canal to the opposite bank and they scanned the moored boats for the vessel that they were looking for.

“
The Lady Natalie
,” Sylvia said, pointing to a boat which was moored about a hundred yards further up the canal. “Look.”

A lamp attached to the bulkhead illuminated the front of the boat. Glass doors had been left open, revealing a cosy living space within. The interior was lit by amber light and the occupants were seated around a small kitchenette table eating a meal. Sat on a padded bench next to each other were Karl and Louise. They clinked long stemmed wine glasses and smiled lovingly at each other as they watched the boats go by.

Their expression changed to one of surprised horror when they saw the detectives walking up the towpath. They’d been shopping and the barge was filled with clothes and toys in anticipation of two young guests arriving. It wouldn’t take a detective of Alec Ramsay’s calibre to work out that they were complicit in the kidnap of the twins.