Fall From Grace (18 page)

Her friends all said she had a man’s attitude when it came to sex. If she wanted it she went looking for it or she welcomed it if it came to find her and she didn’t see any wrong in that. Samantha, her great heroine from Sex and the City had shown all the women of the world the way and that it was okay for women to chase cock as much as men chase fanny. She liked sex. There was nothing like the feeling you get from it when it’s good and as far as she was concerned people who said they didn’t need it were only making up for the fact that they couldn’t find it. She wondered how experienced young Kieran was. Sometimes younger men could surprise a girl with their knowledge. Her vibrator had been seeing a lot of her lately and that was all very fine but she couldn’t talk to it about the football. Kieran looked like he’d be into football. He was well over six feet tall with dark blond hair and green eyes. He’d tan well in the sun and he had the sexiest dimple in his chin. He clearly had an eye for her and she couldn’t wait to get his pants off, so by the end of the day she’d have exchanged numbers with him and made arrangements for him to come round and check out where she slept. Although he won’t be doing much sleeping once she’d got him under her duvet.

But first there was work to do. Yesterday she’d had the most blazing row with Steve Osborne. He’d accused her of trying to undermine him because she wouldn’t accept his theory that the social worker Paul Foster might be involved in the disappearance of the missing girls. His argument was that Foster was the only common link they knew about so far between all the girls. They and their families had all been clients of his. He was only offering it as part of a discussion but one thing led to another and before they knew it voices were being raised and doors were being slammed shut. The first thing she intended to do today was build some kind of bridge with the sexist prick and she was glad when she caught up with him in the corridor.

‘DS Osborne, I completely reject the idea that I was bullying you and I can assure you that I will fight any complaint vigorously, but if there was any bullying going on then I think it was going both ways. Ever since I set foot in this building you’ve done nothing but take any step you can to confront me. Now I know you’re sore because I took the box of toys you thought were yours but you’ve got to deal with it, Steve. Or else you’ll never get to play with them. Now, underneath all this pointless attitude you treat me to I truly believe there’s a bloody good copper just screaming to get out. Your assessment is due in a couple of weeks’ time. Let’s not make it war and peace without the peace.’ She held out her hand. ‘Let’s grow up and get on.’

For once in his life Steve knew he had to bow to the intellectual superiority of a woman. Sara was tough. And he’d have to admit that he didn’t think he’d have been able to confront the bad blood between them like she just had. So he would give her a chance. But only one.

‘In our argument you didn’t bring in the whole man-woman thing,’ said Steve, feeling he was being clumsy with his words although he knew exactly what he was trying to say. ‘You didn’t try to say that it was due to you being a woman and me being a man.’

Now it was Sara’s turn to smile. She wouldn’t take her clothes off for Steve if someone offered to pay her, however much she liked the physical side of life.

Sara went into the ladies and couldn’t help laughing but was also relieved that she and Steve had settled things. She used her usual mix of firmness, honesty, and humour and it seemed to have worked. She did believe that Steve was a good copper. It just needed to be wrestled past his attitude.

She then went into a meeting with Tim, Joe, and Steve. Joe briefed them that as a result of intense house to house enquiries made by uniform and the checking of school attendance records, it was now certain that fifteen teenage girls had gone missing from the Tatton estate and other estates across Greater Manchester and in all cases none of the parents had reported anything to the police. None of the parents would talk. Sara hadn’t even been able to prize anything out of Shona Higgins parents. Whoever had frightened these people into silence had done a bloody good job.

‘So what do we think?’ Sara asked.

‘That there is a connection between them all, ma’am,’ said Steve. ‘All the girls have been declared missing and their details fed through all the national channels. We have checked out all the paedophiles on the watch list who are living in the area and managed to eliminate them all from our enquiries and in any case, to put it bluntly all of these girls would be too old for them.’

‘The youngest is thirteen and the oldest is fifteen, right?’ Tim wanted to confirm.

‘Yes, boss,’ said Joe. ‘There are two offenders who have previous for having sex with underage teenage girls that live on the estate but we’ve been able to rule both of them out too.’

‘And didn’t anybody notice anything on the days these girls disappeared?’ Sara wanted to know.

‘Ma’am, no witnesses have come forward and no incidents have been recorded,’ said Steve.

‘But I can’t believe that nobody saw anything,’ said Sara, ‘I mean, nobody from the schools they were supposed to be attending? The local shops? Bus drivers?’

‘On the face of it, it’s baffling to tell you the truth, ma’am,’ said Steve. ‘These girls just seemed to have walked off into nowhere.’

‘So where do we go from here?’ asked Tim.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Joe, ‘the only thing we can do at this stage is to look through that lot.’ He pointed at the mountain of tapes taken from CCTV cameras on the various estates and outside the schools the girls were supposed to have attended. ‘It’ll take a while but it might bring something up.’

Later that morning Sara met with Superintendent Hargreaves to bring him up to date on both the missing girls and the Naumann extradition case.

‘They’ve both changed their story, sir,’ said Sara. ‘First, Lady Eleanor insisted that nobody else had been there at the time of Peter Jenkins’ murder and had dismissed Wilfred Jenkins assertion at his trial that there had been. Then Naumann tells us that he was the said mystery man who was there when Peter Jenkins died.’

‘So what are we saying has happened here?’ asked Hargreaves who’d always had a more modern attitude to female officers than some of his contemporaries. As far as he was concerned if an officer could bring in the results then he didn’t care whether they were male, female, black, white, brown, yellow, gay, straight, or indifferent.

‘I think that Naumann may have killed Jenkins and Lady Eleanor is protecting him like she’s always done,’ said Sara. ‘Naumann also had a motive to kill Ronald Harding, Lady Eleanor’s husband who was a closet homosexual who’d refused to give Lady Eleanor the divorce she’d asked for when the war ended and she wanted to marry Naumann. For decades they’d carried on an affair and Naumann was the biological father of Lady Eleanor’s daughter who she blamed for the killing.’

‘Exactly, sir,’ Sara went on, ‘Naumann had been married to another woman but he’d always remained in love with Lady Eleanor. He had motive and the need to protect his anonymity provided the perfect alibi.’

‘It is at the moment, sir, I agree,’ said Sara. ‘But what we need to do is to trace people who worked at the Hall back in 1974 and find Clarissa Harding’s boyfriend.’

‘Alright,’ said Hargreaves as he leaned back in his chair and rubbed a finger over his chin. ‘But let’s stay aware of the timescale we have on Naumann. Don’t let it start running out on us.’

*

Lorraine was pegging her washing out when two strong arms grabbed her from behind and one of the hands went up to cover her mouth. It was a fairly secluded back garden and nobody would’ve been able to witness the scene unless they happened to be peering out of their window at the time. And even if anybody had seen they wouldn’t risk talking to the coppers or anyone else for that matter.

Jake threw her down into the armchair in her living room. The curtains had all been drawn closed. He didn’t like what he was doing but he didn’t feel like he had any choice. He’d been dishonourably discharged from the army after they’d discovered he’d taken the handguns and ammunition. His previous exemplary service coupled with his two brushes with death at the hands of the Taliban had proved to be enough in the way of mitigating circumstances for him to escape a much harsher judgement. But still he felt like there was unfinished business to attend to with regard to the army. He didn’t want to take anything out on the army itself. Nobody amongst their ranks would ever be the target of his hunger for revenge. But what he did want to do was to show whoever would listen enough to make sense that the troops shouldn’t be out there. But that was for another day. That was what he was saving up for. Other people who have never had a knife held at their throat, save up their money for a new dining room suite. Jake was saving up to buy something that money couldn’t.

Glenn sat with his legs folded over each other and a cigarette on the go. He nodded to Jake who hoisted Lorraine up and dragged her down at Glenn’s feet. He was holding her by her hair and once more she was almost passing out with fear. Glenn leaned forward.

‘Now, Lorraine,’ said Glenn. ‘Who raised all these suspicions in the first place? Who was it that let the cat out of the bag? Was it you?’

Lorraine shook her head as vigorously as she could in the grip of Jake’s firm hands. ‘No, sir, no, it was that social worker.’

‘Who? A bleeding heart social worker?’

‘He was the one who called in the police to investigate what had happened to the girls. He’s the one who’s made you have to watch yourself, sir.’

‘And what’s his name, Lorraine?’

‘Paul Foster, sir,’ said Lorraine, using her hatred for Paul Foster to get herself off the hook with Barber. He needed to be taught a lesson anyway and Barber was the one to do it. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it before. ‘He works down at the centre in Broughton. He lives round here somewhere but I don’t know where.’

Jake heard Paul’s name and it felt like a knife going through his heart. Jesus Christ, could things get anymore complicated?

‘Paul Foster,’ said Glenn Barber as he rolled his cigarette in his fingers. ‘So he’s the one who thinks he can interfere in my business? Well he’ll have to learn like you all do.’ He stabbed the still burning cigarette into Lorraine’s chin. She let out a scream but Jake held her steady. He was doing his job well despite being knocked way off centre by the mentioning of Paul’s name. He knew what Glenn Barber would intend to do about Paul and it sent a chill through his soul.

‘Don’t keep me waiting for information again, Lorraine,’ said Barber after he’d stood up. Lorraine was crouched down on the floor holding her chin. ‘Let me know as soon as you do. Then we wouldn’t have to make these little visits.’

*

‘One thing puzzles me about you, Lady Eleanor,’ said Marius Van Urk as he began his second interview with her Ladyship in the cavernous drawing room of Gatley Hall.