Blood Money (7 page)

‘And today was the first time you’ve been to the nursery?’

‘No, there was a meeting of all the speakers about a month ago. I came to have a look round and met Mrs Barratt. Originally I was going to ask my parents to look after Jess, but it would have meant an extra journey over to Suffolk and back, and the hospital sent information about the crèche service, offered free. It seemed much more convenient.’ A sob escaped. ‘Oh God. It’s the first time I’ve ever left her with anyone except Peter or my mother. Why did I ever think—?’ Her composure crumbled and Mariner allowed her a few seconds to regroup. Millie passed a fresh box of tissues.

‘So you dropped Jessica off at what time this morning?’ Mariner asked when she seemed calmer.

‘About twenty past eight. The lecture wasn’t until ten, but our friends had suggested I come in early to beat the traffic. It gave me plenty of time to do last minute preparation, too.’

‘And you handed Jessica over to Mrs Barratt.’

‘That’s right.’ She frowned. ‘Where is Mrs Barratt? I haven’t seen her this afternoon.’

‘We’re trying to locate her,’ Mariner said. ‘And you didn’t notice anything unusual, anyone hanging about, watching or following you?’

‘No, though I wasn’t looking, why would I?’

‘Is there any chance that someone else could have collected Jessica, one of your friends perhaps?’

‘No. No one else knew exactly where the nursery was. And why would they do that without speaking to me first?’

‘We just have to cover anything,’ Mariner explained. ‘One of the things I need to ask you to do is come up with a list of all the people who knew, or might have known, you were coming here today, including the friends you stayed with last night.’

She looked alarmed. ‘Are you suggesting this could be someone we know? That’s ludicrous.’

There was a knock on the door. It was Tony Knox. ‘Can I have a word, boss?’

‘I know, it’s unlikely,’ Mariner said to Emma O’Brien, getting to his feet. ‘But we have to explore all the options. Would you excuse me? If anything develops I’ll keep you informed.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I think we’ve got a decent description,’ said Tony Knox, outside on the landing. ‘Charlie Glover’s found a girl who saw this woman when she came in.’

‘Thank Christ for that.’

Charlie Glover had found interviewing the staff a frustrating and tedious business. ‘The most any of them can remember is buzzing from the rooms to let several people in during the afternoon, but none of them can remember specific times or what was said,’ he grumbled as they descended the stairs. ‘Until I got to Christie.’

‘The girl who went from the crèche to the room upstairs,’ said Knox.

Glover took them down the landing to what was normally some kind of storage space, which he’d had cleared enough to accommodate a couple of chairs and conduct his makeshift interviews. ‘This is Christie. She met a woman in the hallway at about the right time.’ Glover looked at the girl. ‘Tell Inspector Mariner what you told me.’

The centre of attention, Christie’s colour rose as she spoke, but not enough to hide the dark red shadow, like a birthmark, that ran down the side of her face partially concealed by makeup. ‘I was up in pre-school but had popped down to the office for some craft paper,’ she said. ‘I was on my way back up the stairs when the woman was buzzed in.’

‘Do you know who let her in?’

‘No. It must have been one of the upstairs rooms. She was sort of hovering in the hallway and looked a bit uncertain of herself and I didn’t recognise her, so I asked if I could help. She said she’d come for her baby, then she asked if Mrs Barratt was here, but I said no, I didn’t think so. I asked her if everything was all right and she sort of hesitated, so I asked if her baby was in the crèche, because those are the mummies who never remember where to go, and she said yes, so I reminded her where it was, and she went along there.’

‘Were those the exact words;
I’ve come for my baby?
’

‘Yes, I’m sure. I didn’t quite catch it at first. She had an accent.’

‘What kind of accent?’

‘From up north, like Deirdre.’

‘Deirdre?’

‘Off
Coronation Street
.’ She was distraught. ‘I thought I was helping.’

‘Of course you did. You had no way of knowing what was happening.’

‘But now I think about it, she seemed sort of anxious and a bit out of breath. I thought maybe she was in a hurry because she’d left her car on the double yellows outside. People do that all the time.’

‘Okay, so you rationalised her behaviour. There’s nothing wrong with that. She must have known Mrs Barratt,’ Mariner said. ‘She asked for her by name.’

‘Except that Mrs Barratt’s picture is on the notice board in the hall, right where she was standing,’ Christie reminded him. ‘She’d have seen it.’ What a contrast, Mariner thought. If Christie had been in the room when Jessica was taken, it might never have happened.

‘Perhaps she was just checking that there was no manager on the premises,’ offered Glover.

‘And you got a good look at the woman?’ Mariner said.

‘Yes.’

Thank God for that. ‘Okay, off you go.’ He held his breath.

‘She was white, about the same height as me - sort of average - and slim with a good figure.’

It was a promising start. ‘What about her hair?’ Mariner asked.

‘It was tied back, and it was brown I think, quite a nice reddish brown colour.’

Charlie Glover was checking his notebook for consistency with what she’d already told him.

‘And how old would you say she was?’

Christie grimaced. ‘I’m not very good on ages.’

‘Was she your age, younger, older?’

‘Older than me, sort of middle aged I suppose. I don’t think she was wearing any makeup and sometimes that makes people look younger, doesn’t it?’

‘Okay. This is fantastic, Christie.’ Mariner could barely contain his relief. ‘Do you remember what she was wearing?’

‘Trousers, I think.’

‘Trousers or jeans?’

‘No definitely dark trousers and a nice top and jacket. She was quite smart, as if she’d been to work, like in an office or something.’

‘What colour was the top?’

‘I couldn’t see much of it.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But it was, like a cream colour with some kind of pattern on, embroidery or sequins. It looked expensive, like cashmere or something. I remember thinking I quite liked it. And she had some kind of jewellery.’ Her hand went up to her throat. ‘She had a gold chain or something round her neck.’

‘And the jacket?’

‘It was dark, navy or black.’

‘Anything else, shoes, a bag?’

‘I don’t think I looked at her shoes. She was holding something in her hand, could have been car keys I suppose.’ She stopped to think for a moment. ‘That’s all I can remember, there’s nothing else.’

‘That’s a great description, Christie, well done. We’ll need to get you to the police station to help us put together a computer image of this woman.’

‘Take Christie to Granville Lane to meet with the efit team,’ he said to Knox who was hovering behind them. ‘The quicker we have an accurate image of this woman the better.’

‘Tony.’ As Knox was leaving Mariner called him back. ‘You spoke to Anna? How did she take it?’

‘She was okay about it,’ said Knox. ‘Calm as you like.’

But Mariner didn’t like the sound of that. He knew what she was thinking:
I hope this isn’t going to happen when
...

She’d been so excited when she found out that she rang him at work, unable to contain herself. ‘You know all that crap they used to give us in sex education lessons about how babies are made?’

‘Yes.’

‘Turns out they were right. I’m pregnant.’ He’d never known her so happy. It happened so much sooner than either of them had imagined it would. Her euphoria lasted a month to the day, until that morning when he’d awoken in the early hours to find the duvet turned back from ominous stains and Anna perched on the side of the bath sobbing uncontrollably.

‘It’s far more common than you might think,’ the doctor reassured them, ‘and really nothing to worry about. Absolutely no reason why you can’t go on to have a healthy baby.’ But his words weren’t much comfort. Anna had wanted that baby. The experience had frightened her, too. Since then Anna had insisted that they do as the doctor suggested and wait a few weeks, and somehow the weeks had evolved into months and she remained reluctant. But then, it was she who had gone through all the physical and emotional turmoil and he could understand why she’d be afraid of it happening again. They hadn’t really had much opportunity to talk about it and Mariner was loath to raise the subject because he knew how upset it made her. Sometimes when he looked at her she seemed so tired, and a light had gone out behind her eyes that he so wanted to re-ignite.

‘I’m sure she’d prefer to speak to you though, boss,’ Knox said, bringing him back to the present.

Knox was right. He could snatch a couple of minutes now. But when Mariner stepped outside into the gathering dusk to try and ring Anna, he was distracted by a tank-like 4x4 that bounced up on to the pavement drawing to a halt outside the nursery, completely disregarding the parking restrictions. The side window bore a sticker for Jack and the Beanstalk Day Nursery. A big-busted woman, fiftyish in suit and heels, with glossy scarlet fingernails that perfectly matched her lipstick, climbed out and went round to the tailgate of the vehicle, from which she began to drag a huge cardboard box. As Mariner approached her she eyed him with suspicion, a lone male prowling outside a children’s nursery.

‘Mrs Barratt?’ Mariner ventured a guess.

‘That’s right, I’m Trudy Barratt. Can I help you?’ She paid him scant attention, more concerned with the task in hand.

Mariner took out his warrant card. ‘I’m here to help you,’ he said, reaching into the car and holding within her line of vision. ‘One of your children has gone missing.’

The box was teetering on the rim of the boot when he spoke and she almost let it fall.

‘That’s impossible.’ She was aghast. Pragmatism took over. ‘Someone’s made a mistake. The girls have got you here for nothing.’

‘I’m afraid not. Jessica O’Brien has been taken from your nursery.’

Trudy Barratt froze. Pocketing his phone, Mariner grabbed the bulky cardboard carton from where it precariously rested on the lip of the boot. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked.

‘Thanks,’ she said, absently, slamming shut the tailgate, and now intent on getting into the building as quickly as possible. She punched in the code and stepped aside to let Mariner through with his load, which he deposited in the now blissfully empty hallway. The full circumstances explained, Mrs Barratt’s response became somewhat repetitive. ‘I don’t understand how this can have happened,’ she kept saying. ‘I need to talk to the girls.’

‘We already have,’ said Mariner. ‘As far as we can ascertain a woman walked into the crèche unchallenged at two thirty this afternoon and took Jessica O’Brien, as if she was her own child.’

‘And they let her go?’

‘No one had any reason not to. Your staff didn’t know that the woman wasn’t Jessica’s mother. You were the only person who had met her.’

‘And I wasn’t here.’ Mariner hadn’t intended his comment as a judgement but she’d clearly taken it that way. ‘Oh my God.’

Samantha appeared, hurrying down the stairs. ‘Have you heard what’s happened? A woman came into—’

‘Yes, I know. I’d like to have a few minutes—’

The last was directed at Mariner and as he nodded affirmation the two women disappeared into the office and Trudy Barratt closed the door politely but firmly behind them. Raised voices followed, before finally Samantha emerged, shaken but still keeping it together.

‘I’ll go and check if all the other children have gone,’ she said, unnecessarily to Mariner as she crossed the hall and climbed the stairs. He watched as Mrs Barratt went to pick up her phone and spotted the newly installed recording device, her hand hovering in mid-air. He pushed open the door. ‘We have to track all the calls made from now on,’ he said.

Mrs Barratt looked panicked. ‘Can I use my mobile?’

‘If you tell me who you’re calling.’

‘My husband.’

Mariner allowed Trudy Barratt some privacy, and as he watched her through the window, pacing her office and jabbering into the phone, her expression grim, Charlie Glover appeared at his side.

‘She’s jittery,’ Glover observed.

‘Wouldn’t you be? She’s responsible for other people’s children and she’s just lost one of them. The publicity could ruin her. She’s scared. Her reputation, business and livelihood are on the line.’

As they watched, Trudy Barratt became increasingly animated, the phone conversation becoming heated. ‘She told me she wanted to speak to her husband. Do you get the impression he hasn’t taken it well?’ Mariner wondered aloud. He turned to Glover. ‘What did you need?’

‘Some of the staff are asking how long we’ll be, sir,’ Charlie Glover said. ‘They’ve got families at home, and some have got their own kids to collect.’

Mariner nodded. ‘As long as we’ve got statements and contact details from all of them, then you can let them go. Warn them that we may need to get in touch with them over the course of the weekend though.’ Glover went to pass on the good news. Mariner allowed Trudy Barratt a further couple of minutes then knocked lightly on the door and, without waiting for an invitation, walked in.

‘I’ll call you back,’ Trudy Barratt said, decisively, and ended the call.

Mariner waited expectantly. ‘My husband,’ she said, again.

‘He’s a partner in the business?’

‘Oh no. I just wanted him to know that I’d be late.’

The call was more than that, but Mariner let it go.

There was a light knock on the door and one of the girls brought in a baby in a car seat. The baby he’d met earlier, Ellie, was, by now, sucking strenuously on a pink dummy, dark eyes surveying all around her. It was after six.