Snow Kills (11 page)

He shook his head. ‘No, thank you for your hard work, and pass on my thanks to the rest of the team. I’m very grateful we can eliminate that line of enquiry.’

She wasn’t there, so where is she? pondered Dylan, as he sat at his desk, hands folded together and his chin resting on his knuckles.

‘Vicky!’ he shouted. ‘Get an aerial search done to look for any geological changes on the moors, will you.’

‘What you thinking, shallow grave?’ she asked as she stood at his door.

‘Perhaps,’ he said shrugging his shoulders. ‘I’m off to Barry Sharpe to see if I can glean any more of what happened when Tina Walker went missing.’

‘Back to basics?’

‘It can’t do any harm,’ Dylan sighed, picking up his jacket and putting relevant paperwork in his briefcase. He wasn’t happy that only one of Kayleigh’s boots and her coat had been found – it didn’t feel right. He would have expected to have found both boots together if she’d discarded them. Were the garments left there by someone to throw them off a scent, he wondered? Had she got into someone’s car that night and been taken there, or had she started walking home and hypothermia set in? Would they ever know?

Dylan drove up onto the Manchester Road and stood quietly where Kayleigh’s car had been parked. He looked across the moors. Kayleigh knew the area. She would have known that by travelling further along Manchester Road in the direction she was heading that it would take her out onto nothing but bleak moorland, so common sense told him that if she had headed anywhere that night, on foot, it would have been back in the direction from which she had come and towards nearby dwellings. Providing of course she was in control of her own movements, he conceded.

He could just see the roof of the nearest house a short distance away. He walked a little closer to the building. When he got back to the police station, he would ensure physical searches were done there and the occupiers checked out. A call and a chat were not good enough at this stage of the enquiry. He needed to be sure she wasn’t being kept somewhere against her will. He knew from experience that predators struck in all types of weather and circumstances, usually when victims were at their most vulnerable, making them easy prey.

Dylan took out his mobile and rang Barry Sharpe’s number. Thirty minutes later, he was shown into his dining room which looked out onto a large flat perfectly manicured lawn.

Dylan sat down opposite his tired, dishevelled looking predecessor. ‘Dylan,’ he said holding out his hand. Barry gripped it tightly.

‘It’s good to see you mate,’ he said.

‘Tea and biscuits, Detective Inspector Dylan?’ asked Barry’s wife Trish. ‘I haven’t seen Barry so enthused about a meeting in a long number of years,’ she said with a smile. ‘He’s been busy up in the attic digging out all his old paperwork since you rang,’ she added, ruffling the few remaining hairs on her husband’s head.

Barry’s hands were resting protectively upon a pile of papers. ‘Well it’s not often people are as interested as I am in the Tina Walker case these days,’ he said.

Trish put a loving arm around her husband’s shoulders and squeezed him tight. ‘It’s not, is it dear?’ she said, planting a kiss on the top of his head.

Barry squirmed. ‘If it’s the last thing I do I’ll find the bugger that abducted her,’ he said with a hint of fire in his eyes.

‘I thought at one time that investigation would be the last thing he ever did do,’ Trish said seriously to Dylan.

‘Baloney woman, you fret too much,’ said Barry.

‘Coffee would be lovely, thank you Mrs Sharpe. It would be great to get a positive connection in the two cases,’ said Dylan.

‘It troubles me even now. Did we miss something? Was it me that was off the boil? Did I have tunnel vision? I was so determined to get the culprit for this one... We never found her, her clothing or her bike. It was as though she just vanished into thin air that day.’ Barry’s stare was steady and unblinking as he looked at Dylan and beyond. ‘There was another girl went missing just over the border not long afore in the snow, y’ know. She was never found either, but because she was a member of the travelling fraternity, it was deemed she might have moved on. They called her Defiance ... Diffy for short.’

Dylan smiled. ‘If Jen heard you right now, she’d say you sounded just like me,’ he chuckled.

‘Then I don’t envy your wife one bit,’ Trish said, raising her eyebrows as she took leave of the two men to make the drinks.

‘I’m sure you did the best you could with the technology you had back then, Barry. Don’t be too hard on yourself. And Tina’s disappearance might not even be connected to Kayleigh, so I don’t want you getting your hopes up, but we will revisit the investigation to see if there is any similarities and if they are connected or not.’

Barry’s eyes lit up. ‘But you suspect the worst don’t you? Just like I did, don’t you?’ he said.

‘The facts speak for themselves, unfortunately. She’s a young girl, pretty, supposedly street wise, but she suddenly goes missing in atrocious weather, body not found. You of all people know the types of predators out there, somebody will highly likely have taken advantage of her situation – and unfortunately, if they have, she’s become their victim. I just hope we get some leads, otherwise some detective might be coming to see me in a few years time to see what I know, as I have with you.’

‘I hope you solve it Dylan, not just for her family but, selfishly, for me too... If we get a result then I’ll go back into my garden in peace this year,’ he said, pointing towards his sanctuary.

‘Like I said, Kayleigh’s disappearance may have nothing to do with Tina Walker’s but if it has we’ll do our damnedest to find the connection. You obviously have green fingers. It’s like a park out there,’ Dylan said looking out to the garden.

‘Ah, not at this time of year but it’s good exercise, so the wife tells me,’ he said with a nod of his head in her direction. ‘You can see the results almost instantly when you do a bit of work out there – and that’s what I like these days.’

‘I don’t get much time for gardening,’ said Dylan, thoughtfully. ‘It’s like everything else, left to Jen, especially when a job’s running.’

‘Neither did I back then, but God willing you will. The years fly past. Before you know it your thirty years will have gone too and you can pick up the threads of your home life, if you’ve still got one that is. There were many officers I worked with who didn’t see their retirement or hang onto their marriages or children. I was lucky,’ he said, smiling in Trish’s direction. ‘So it’s zero tolerance for the weeds now, but just like criminals they keep on coming back generation after generation,’ he laughed.

As Dylan drove back to the station with Barry Sharpe’s files safely locked in the boot of his car, he thought how nice it was to see one of his forerunners enjoying their well-earned retirement. He had known a hell of a lot of colleagues who had never made it there too, for one reason or another. His phone rang and he pulled into a lay-by to answer it.

‘Avril Summerfield-Preston,’ Beaky said in a cool, curt voice. ‘Divisional Administrator, Harrowfield.’

Dylan smiled. ‘l know who you are Avril. You don’t have to tell me every time you ring me.’

‘I like to keep it professional, Detective Inspector Dylan. I’m ringing to tell you that from tomorrow you’ll be sharing the CID office with a DI Turner and his officers from Hampshire Constabulary who are coming up to do some investigations on a cold case enquiry.’

‘And where may I ask are they going to sit, on our bloody knees?’ Dylan snapped. His brows furrowed.

‘There is no margin for discussion. Chief Superintendent Hugo-Watkins says... Well, let’s just say the decision has been made.’

‘I might have known. Does that pompous, supercilious git actually know how many people work out our office already? Oh no, silly me, how could he, he doesn’t honour the likes of us mere mortals with his bloody presence.’ Dylan cut the call without saying goodbye, threw his head back on the headrest, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He texted Jen,
‘I need some fresh air – how about a bit of pram pushing? Ten minutes suit you?’

‘We’ll be ready and waiting,’
she texted back immediately. Dylan taking time out, there must be something wrong, she thought as she dressed Maisy to go out in the cold afternoon sun. ‘One thing for sure my lovely girl, we are about to find out what’s up,’ she said to Maisy as she sat the baby in the pram. Maisy had become unusually calm over the past few days, instead of needing Jen’s attention for most of every waking hour, she was now beginning to amuse herself for short periods.

Jen watched Dylan as he got out of the car in the driveway from the living room window, his face was like thunder.

Maisy squealed with delight as her daddy walked in the door and Jen saw his face instantly soften. He crept across the room grinning and bent down, waving his fingers in front of her. She threw her teddy out of the pram and Dylan picked it up. Handing it back to her, he kissed the top of her head and stood up. Instantly she threw the teddy out again and Dylan bent down to pick it up once more.

‘I’ll have that, young lady,’ Jen said, seizing the toy. ‘Otherwise we’ll be here all day playing that little game.’ Maisy howled. Dylan put his finger in the palm of her hand and she grasped it tightly, still whimpering miserably. He took hold of the pram and negotiated it expertly out of the door. Maisy’s face was solemn for a minute or two, but as soon as they stepped outside Dylan was rewarded with a smile. Max stood beside the pram, panting with excitement. In silence they strolled towards Sibden Park. Jen hooked up to Dylan’s arm, reaching down intermittently to stop and throw a stick for Max to fetch. Dylan took a few deep breaths and turned to look at his wife. ‘I’ve been to see a retired SIO this morning about another girl who went missing in the same area twenty years ago.’

‘You think it may be linked?’

‘Well, Tina Walker did disappear a long time ago...,’ he said. ‘Albeit it was in the same weather conditions... but my gut instinct is saying where the hell has the perpetrator been, if it is the same person or persons, since? Surely whoever abducted Tina Walker, if that is what happened to her, hasn’t waited twenty years to do it again?’

‘You’d better get it sorted mister. I don’t want any detectives coming around pestering us when you’ve retired. I want us to leave all this well and truly behind us.’

‘Me too Jen, me too,’ he nodded.

‘Something he said made you cross?’

Dylan smiled. ‘You know me too well my girl,’ he said. ‘Hell no! It’s Hugo...’

‘Watkins,’ she smiled knowingly.

‘The hierarchy as usual,’ Dylan said with a sigh. ‘He’s only told a group of officers from Hampshire that they can use our office while they’re up here on a cold case enquiry.’

‘Oh,’ she grimaced. ‘Linked?’

‘Don’t know anything else yet. I put the phone down on Beaky.’

‘Ouch. You didn’t! Don’t go upsetting her. I need her to agree to my back to work terms or my career-break...’ she smiled apprehensively.

‘Well... She rubs me up the wrong way. What you thinking about returning?’

‘Arh, I’m just thinking about it...’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You’re not going to get into trouble for walking out with us are you?’ Jen said reaching forward to pull Maisy’s knitted bonnet away from her eyes.

‘Well let’s see, I have my mobile with me. If anyone wants me, they can get hold of me. I’m the boss. So, if I don’t tell myself off, then I guess I’m okay,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘But there again, if it had been someone else’s wife I was with, pushing a pram, then I guess I’d be in trouble, right?’

‘No, you’d be in hospital and I’d be at the police station admitting the assault.’

‘That’s one thing you’ll never have to worry about with me, Jen. There is only room for two girls in my life and I’m with them,’ he said, smiling lovingly down at Maisy, who was fast asleep, her pretty little head tilted with her chin upon her chest.

‘She’s her father’s daughter,’ Jen said, surveying Maisy closely.

‘Because she’s cute with kissable lips?’ he gave an almost noiseless laugh.

‘No because she snores and can fall asleep on a washing line, as my mum used to say.’ Jen smiled up into his eyes and kissed him on the lips.

Dylan felt much better as he strolled back into the CID office an hour later. Looking around, he could see that Avril had already had desks moved and placed in a square, to accommodate their visitors. Trust her to do it while he was out.

‘Who was about on the evening of White Wednesday, DC Granger? Have all the nearby houses been checked, DC Wormald?’ he said with renewed vigour. The officers didn’t look up from their work. ‘Ned, Andy, you listening to me?’ Dylan shouted. ‘Well?’

‘A lady phoned the office this morning in response to the appeal saying that her and her husband had abandoned their vehicle in the same area that night. The only people they saw were two young lads who were drinking and being quite loud and boisterous. Oh, and a person was seen carrying hot drinks to stranded drivers. The aforementioned lady has been given priority to be seen and the person seen carrying the hot drinks has yet to be found,’ said Vicky.

‘Make sure it’s recorded on the HOLMES computer system. The amount of information coming in is becoming too much for paper records and we need it on the system for quick cross-referencing. Arrange for the file of Tina Walker to be typed on as a linked category to show the extent of background research at this time, but also so it is immediately retrievable. It’s in my office and I’ve picked up retired Detective Superintendent Barry Sharpe’s paperwork this morning that I want going through. It’s only a matter of time before Kayleigh’s body turns up,’ said Dylan.

‘That’s what it is...’ said Vicky looking over Dylan’s shoulder into his office that was stacked high with boxes. ‘Shall I get it removed now?’

‘Bloody hell! They’ve found more?’

‘Yes, Trevor put the last of the boxes on your desk and chair this morning, there was nowhere else to put them.’

‘Barry Sharpe mentioned another misper from just over the border too, about the same time as Tina Walker went missing, but it was thought she might have moved on, part of the travelling fraternity, he said. Maybe worth getting hold of that information from GMP?’