Snow Kills (8 page)

‘We’ll take that with us if you don’t mind, it will help us identify the type of boot and if the receipt is inside...’ she said taking off the lid and retrieving a small piece of paper which she waved in front of her, ‘this tells us when and where she purchased them and even who served her.’

‘My goodness, you don’t leave anything to chance, do you?’ said Kim.

‘We can’t. Our boss’s favourite saying is clear the ground beneath your feet first, and that’s what we all do. We’ll be checking out anyone and everyone that she has had contact with lately.’

‘Well,’ Kim sighed. ‘All I can say is thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart for everything you’re doing.’

‘All part of the service,’ smiled Vicky as she reached out and gave Kim a brief hug before leaving.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘It’s so much more than that.’

Dylan was in his office, wading through the endless heap of paperwork that came with modern day policing. He stopped for a moment, yawned and sighed, deep in thought. What he would give to be home with Jen and Maisy right now.

‘Pen-pusher to pram-pusher,’
he texted.
‘How’re my favourite girls? Cheer me up. Monthly stats are doing my head in.’

‘Little Maisy is fast asleep and she’s snoring her head off, just like her daddy.’

Dylan smiled.

‘Walking around Sibden Park with Max. He’s pulling the pram up the hill for me while I text.
’

‘Fancy being jealous of a dog! x’

‘Don’t be late tonight then! Love you x’
Jen replied.

Dylan’s desk phone rang. He was so deep in thought, it made him jump. ‘Dylan,’ he snapped.

‘Yes sir, Sgt Simon Clegg, I’m with the search and rescue team and I thought I’d let you know that we’ve found a lady’s fur jacket on the outskirts of the woods above the old Cragg quarry, about three miles as the crow flies from where the young lady left her car.’

‘Is the jacket still in situ?’ asked Dylan with a furrowed brow.

‘For now sir. My officers are continuing to search around it, and I’ve arranged for SOCO to come and photograph.’

‘Good. I’ll get my all-weather gear and be with you in about twenty minutes. I have your location.’

A thought crossed his mind. Scenes of Crimes Officers would very soon be renamed Crime Scene Investigators in West Yorkshire, he had read. How American was that going to sound when officers were telling him CSI were on their way?

The day was one of sailing clouds and splashes of sunlight. The main road was still littered with the odd abandoned vehicle, haphazardly parked. As Dylan turned into the entrance of the unmade road leading to the quarry, he slowed. The snow was too compacted to hold his wheels. The car lurched, wallowed, skidded and stuck. The back wheels spun on the ice. A few yards beyond the clearing, the track died away and the rough terrain beyond would have been impossible to negotiate over the moorland in his vehicle, even in good weather. Dylan knew he would never get as close as the search and rescue vehicles. This was a solitary place to separate a man from bricks and mortar, he thought as he got out of his vehicle. Pulling on his wellingtons from the boot of his car, he considered his walk down the uneven man-made footpath. The sun intermittently broke through the fast moving cirrostratus cloud cover to form black shadows on the ground. The wind picked up as he marched across the stark moorland. He took his gloves out of his pockets and put them on. The path snaked its way downwards amid thickening bracken, heather and a tangle of old laurels, covered in more places than not with thick, solid, packed snow mounds. He slipped and stumbled along the way, and where the snow was light, dead wood crackled under his feet.

The wind was in his hair and billowing out his coat and he fought to pull it tightly around him. The quarry itself was screened by banks and trees. Dylan walked toward the police Land Rover and soon he could make out steep, sloping layers with benches in the rock faces that looked like giant flat steps in the quarry. Dylan strode out with purpose towards a group of officers, putting his hands in his pockets and screwing up his face as the wind sprayed snow at him on the breeze. A chill ran down his spine. He remembered only too well the difficulties they had had in the past getting down to the waters. He could see a large overgrown hole excavated into the rock. The colours within the steep layers were incredibly stark, grey, pink, red, yellow and black. As he neared, he passed a few old, rusty remnants of machinery, diggers, scrapers and transporting dumper trucks that had been left there to rot. The murky waters now in sight were estimated to be about ten foot deep, if his sources were correct. It had been thought an ideal place to hide a body back in the summer of 2003 when the tired, disillusioned police officers had discarded their wet gear here to dry out on the overgrown rhododendron bushes. The suggestion was then that a car dealer’s body had been dumped there after an alleged contract killing. Nothing was ever found; now would it have to be searched again – but with success this time? Only time would tell.

Dylan approached Sgt Clegg, who was looking intently at what turned out to be a mass of snow covered fern that had piled itself like a small tent, around the trunk of a fir. In this sheltered place the air was like deep water. He nodded. The officers were beating the hedges in an attempt to find Kayleigh Harwood. Dylan stood still, watching the approaching men from the base of the quarry. Now and again one of them would peer under the spreading branches of a thorn. Suddenly, everyone’s attention was diverted in the direction of an English springer spaniel that had begun circling the ground about a hundred yards away. ‘Sir,’ Clegg nodded to Dylan. ‘Best have a look, it may be something of relevance. Vegas’s usually very good. Three years old, but has one hell of a nose,’ he said. Dylan walked silently alongside the sergeant towards a solid looking liver and white bitch.

‘She certainly seems to be excited about something,’ said Dylan, his face suddenly illuminated.

Andy and Ned arrived at Matt Prentice’s flat and were invited in. With trained eyes, they analysed his replies to their questioning about Kayleigh and studied his body language closely.

Kayleigh’s boyfriend was co-operative and came across as genuine and very concerned about his girlfriend. But if he was so fond of her, as much as he professed, why would he let a week pass without contact, wondered Andy?

Matt apologised for the state of the apartment. He picked up clothing strewn over the furniture so they could sit down. ‘Sorry, I haven’t had chance to clear up.’ He sniffed, his chest still congested.

‘You don’t need to bother for us,’ Ned said, looking at the amount of personal belongings also on the bedroom floor that could be seen though the open door of the lounge. It was no different from the majority of young people’s flats they saw, but he would put his wages on Matt being able to lay his hands on any specific item if it was needed.

‘Any of this Kayleigh’s?’ asked Andy.

‘Most of it,’ he said, plucking a cardigan from the back of the chair he was sitting in and holding it against him. ‘She spends more time here than she does at home these days,’ he said, before turning his head. He sneezed into his hand and then sneezed again into the air.

‘So, tell us about Wednesday 7
th
January, what happened?’ said Ned.

‘Excuse me,’ Matt said, blowing his nose on a crumpled tissue. ‘I don’t usually see Kayleigh on a Wednesday, it’s the one day a week she goes home to blow dry her mum’s hair. But that night I received a text from her asking if she could come here because of the snow. As if she needed to ask. I told her that I was at Dave’s,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘She texted me later to say she was stuck in the snow but listening to the radio for advice on what to do. I guess, quite rightly so, she was miffed with me because I was in the warm, at m’ mates. She’d guess we were playing computer games.’

‘Is that the last time you heard from her?’ Andy said, making notes in his pocket book.

‘Yeah. Look, Kayleigh has her own key; if, she had got here she could have let herself in. What else could I do? If she was stuck, then I’d have got stuck too if I’d attempted to get to her. I stayed at Dave’s for the night. Then I started with this lot,’ he said, grabbing another tissue from the box, blowing his nose loudly and throwing both tissues in the direction of the rattan bin. ‘I thought she’d just gone home until Kim rang me and told me otherwise.’

‘So you were at Dave’s all night?’ said Ned.

‘Yeah, we finished off a bottle of vodka he had left over from Christmas,’ he laughed, half-heartedly. ‘I couldn’t stand up. I felt so ill the next day, what with the drink and this lot. When I did make it home, I just about managed to crawl into bed and then slept the clock round. I feel bad now. You don’t think something serious has happened to her, do you? Like this is just routine procedure for somebody that’s missing? You think she’ll be okay, don’t you?’

 ‘We hope so, but we do need to trace her. I don’t need to tell you how bad the weather was that night. If she set off walking, who knows where she ended up?’ said Andy.

‘She wouldn’t have set off walking. I know Kayleigh, she doesn’t do walking unless it’s round the shops. She’d have stayed in her car, I’m sure. She wouldn’t have risked ruining her new boots for anything.’

‘Do you think she’d accept a lift?’ said Andy.

‘Not unless she knew the person offering. She’s not stupid. She was the most sensible person I know... Kayleigh’s street-wise, but it is unlike her not to be in touch. Is there anything I can do? I feel so frigging useless just sat here.’

‘You can compile a list of everyone you both know for us – and I mean everyone. No matter how trivial the connection – friends, work colleagues, etcetera, absolutely anyone you can think of. We’ll need your mate Dave’s details too, to check out your story,’ Andy said.

‘Why would I lie?’ Matt said, looking bemused. ‘I know when girls go missing, you lot and everyone else automatically suspects the boyfriend, but honestly, I swear I didn’t see her that night.’

‘Didn’t say you’ve lied, but some do and so we have to verify everything anybody says.’ said Ned.

‘She’s my girl, you know,’ he said, his voice choked with emotion.

Obtaining the necessary details and ensuring that Kayleigh was nowhere on the premises the two detectives headed back to the police station.

‘He seemed straight enough,’ said Ned.

‘Yeah but you noticed like I did that he used the past tense about Kayleigh when he said. ‘
She was the most sensible person...’
didn’t you?’ said Andy.

‘What you saying?’ said Ned.

‘I think we should never assume,’ said Andy, with a grim face.

Sgt Clegg managed to curtail Vegas’s barking at the edge of Cragg Quarry. The Springer Spaniel had found a lady’s black boot and was over-excited.

Dylan dropped to his haunches to take a closer look, put his hands in his pockets and was alone with his thoughts as he stared at the item of footwear. The boot was of the same description as the one Kayleigh had been wearing on the day she had gone missing. He could see part of a sale label still stuck in the arch of the sole. He looked around him but there was no sign of other clothing or footwear. Dylan glanced down the precipice into the depths of the dank quarry through the broken, rusty metal mesh fence directly ahead. Had she taken that fall? Was she at the bottom in the dark waters? If so, there was one thing for certain, she was never coming back alive.

The logistics for the search team would be a nightmare, with that steep climb down. But then, and only then could the water beneath be searched. He didn’t envy the Operational Support Team, but he knew he could rely on them to do a thorough job. When he got back to the station he would make the request for the location to be searched. Somebody would be doing a detailed risk assessment for Health and Safety issues, but thankfully not him. Now the right boot that had been found, it would be photographed in situ, then bagged and tagged with the chance of forensics getting DNA from inside it. He would hope and keep positive, for while there was a chance of Forensics coming up trumps he couldn’t miss the opportunity to use it, no matter what the financial cost.

The prospect of finding Kayleigh alive was not looking good. The severe weather conditions, the revelation of a fur jacket and now a boot turning up were inconclusive. He was well aware that hypothermia caused people to discard clothing, so it didn’t always follow that there had been foul play. He had dealt with naked bodies found outside with clothing strewn about them, which he had learned very early on in his career was a reaction to nothing sinister, just the extreme cold that made the victims feel hot – and at this point they would remove their clothing. But it was more than likely that Kayleigh was dead. He would never assume, but this missing girl had got his full attention.