The Deal (18 page)

He was becoming increasingly frustrated with the police. It was their job to find Tabitha and they seemed disorganised. He just wanted his daughter back. His hand rested on the pocket containing the drink. He wondered whether he should demand a meeting with all the top brass. Perhaps a drink now would give him the resolve to assert his rights as a parent. He would go home and talk it through with Lucy. She always backed him and she was suffering so much pain. He would also sort out the reporter who had dreamt up the ‘Madeleine McCann’ headline. He would never forgive that sensation-seeking action.

Yes, Charles Harriman had a number of scores to settle, once they had found Tabitha.

Sarah reached the Harrimans’ home at eleven o’clock in the evening. It was a tense half-hour they spent together. She’d met with her senior officers at eight o’clock. The media-generated responses were disappointing. Nothing but time-wasters.

“You think she’s dead, don’t you?” accused Lucy.

“We have statistics, Lucy,” she said. “They won’t help us at this moment but I’ll be honest with you – I thought we would have found her by now.”

“So why aren’t you out looking for her??” shouted Charles. Lucy leaned over and put her hand on his arm.

“We’re looking everywhere, Mr Harriman. That I promise you.”

“Well, you’re obviously not looking where she is because if you were you would have found her!”

DCI Rudd nodded. “I can’t counter that,” she said. “We’re extending out tomorrow by another three miles.”

“Why didn’t you do that today?!” he said, anger bubbling inside him like lava.

Sarah looked helplessly at Lucy, who stood up and went over to her husband. He immediately left the room without a glance at the police officer.

“Where is she?” pleaded Lucy.

“She’s in Ealing.” DCI Rudd paused. “We just don’t know where.”

“What are the chances that you won’t find her?”

“As I said, we have the statistics. This is different.”

“Different?”

“I’m certain that the lorry crash and Tabitha’s disappearance are connected.”

“How?”

“In normal circumstances we’d have proved or disproved Mr Masters’ green car issue within hours. But there was so much confusion that we simply aren’t sure.”

“It must be the Masters then.”

“There is certainly something a bit odd about them – but they’ve not got Tabitha. We’ve searched their home from top to bottom. The dogs would have picked up her scent.”

“So, what happens now?” Lucy asked, desperate.

“We keep on trying everything we know.”

DCI Rudd looked at Lucy and the pain etched on her face. She so wanted to offer some words from which she might take comfort. The difficulty was that Tabitha had completely disappeared and, despite all the experience available to DCI Rudd, nobody had come up with any suggestion that might break the deadlock.

But she
knew
that Tabitha was somewhere in Ealing.

Earlier in the day, Nigel Brewer had hesitated before making the phone call. He had been out beyond the school gates and watched as a van pulled up. The police were searching the buildings behind the row of shops, most of which were locked up. He had been thinking it was possible that Tabitha might have wandered further afield and he had a suggestion to make to the officer in charge. He had obtained her mobile number from one of the policemen who had visited the school.

He cancelled the call and put his phone away.

He so wanted to be helpful. He felt he had much more to offer but, because he was just the school caretaker, he was not being taken seriously. He decided that the best way for him to make an impact would be to find Tabitha.

Sara was wandering around the perimeter of the Tower of London, now lit by floodlights. It had been a difficult day, starting with a difficult breakfast. She had gone far too far in her comments to Andrew and had been surprised that he had not reacted more strongly. She had then followed up with an almost inevitable clash with Gavin, which had needed Abbi and Martin to sort out. She had then arrived back at the flat to discover that Alex had taken some holiday and would be away for four days.

She had never given too much thought to her style and personality. She was aware that people found her direct and lacking in grace, but she saw things in logical progressions. That was partly why she was proving so adept at her market research projects. She understood the nature of chasing knowledge and was a master at lateral thinking. She had been slightly surprised by the scale of praise she had received for her work on City Fiction. She had simply done the job at hand and gone some way in working out what Andrew Agnew wanted to find out. She realised that, quite possibly, Andrew himself did not fully understand his own thinking on the matter. She wondered if he was using her report as a short cut to making a decision.

Sara had only ever gained job satisfaction from her own subjective evaluations. She was unimpressed by praise when she doubted the motivation of the speaker. In the everyday life of the office she heard, time and again, colleagues saying things they did not mean. It was often the easy way out.

She was surprised that Alex had gone without telling her first. She had tried the mobile but that was switched off. The atmosphere earlier in the day had been fine and they’d cuddled in bed before Sara had departed for her breakfast meeting. She wondered about writing Alex a letter in which she could bring out the hurt she felt over recent tensions and now, with this sudden departure. She decided that she would speak straight to the point when they met up again. She was good at that, after all.

Sarah returned to the police station, sat at her desk and straightened the paperwork. She glanced at a text message from her husband – she knew it was late and she should probably go home, but remained where she was. They should have found Tabitha by now. She was ready to discount the story of the green car. They had put all the pressure they could on the Masters.

“Where
are
you Tabitha?” she said to herself, putting her hands over her face. “I know that you’re here somewhere…” She sat back and went over the whole investigation, trying to spot a weak link. She was certain that Tabitha was alive and in Ealing. She was most likely being held in an obvious place. It is not easy to hide a child of four years of age for very long because somewhere something will show. Sarah looked down the list of phone calls received during the day but couldn’t see anything out of order. She was looking for a name or something out of the norm that would lead her to the child. She slowly turned the pages of her file.

And then, at long, long last, she realised the truth. It was staring out from the file in front of her. 7.00pm. 8.30am. 11.00am.

“You bastard!” she cried out.

She picked up the telephone and spoke to Superintendent Obuma. Forty minutes later, DCI Rudd, along with two armed officers, went through the front door, and another five police officers, two of whom were female, and two of whom were carrying weapons, broke down the back entrance. The doctor they had on hand was asked to wait until he was called for by the police officers.

They immediately arrested the two occupants of the building, but did not stop to search the rest of the premises. DCI Rudd knew exactly where Tabitha was to be found.

In the early hours of the morning, just after midnight, Lucy had reached a point where she didn’t care if her husband opened the bottle of scotch or not. He was sitting on his own.

“Charles,” she said, “please have one. It simply doesn’t matter anymore. Pour yourself a drink now if it will help you.”

Charles stared dully at Tabitha’s photograph, which he’d propped up against the side of the bottle.

Lucy was exhausted. She’d found Scarlett’s and Lily’s questions the most agonising thing to deal with – they’d watched the news bulletins throughout the afternoon and evening and were, naturally, extremely alarmed.

She was suddenly startled from her reverie by flashing blue lights pulsating through the gaps in the curtains. She rushed to the front door and pulled it open. She saw, standing there, DCI Rudd.

And in her arms, the policewoman was holding a tired, but excited and healthy-looking, Tabitha.

As Lucy clung, weeping, to her daughter, she turned back into the hallway. Scarlett was standing at the top of the stairs holding out Tabitha’s favourite cuddly bear.

About ten minutes later, a car horn sounded outside their home. It was followed by another and then one more. Suddenly a cacophony of sound erupted and, as Lucy went to the front door, she realised that their friends and neighbours were congregating outside, waving and shouting, many in their pyjamas. The press were trying to take photographs and rushed forward, past the three police officers, to interview Lucy.

As Lucy stood with her daughter in her arms, feeling like she would never let go again, Charles appeared with Scarlett and Lily. The Harriman family was together again.

During the cheering and general shouting, a local reporter found himself being pulled into the bushes in the front garden. As he protested, a fist smashed into his face.

Amanda could not sleep. She had had another successful day in Paris but now her thoughts were elsewhere. She had re-read the paper from her brother over and over again and understood the logic of his proposals. She was also not going to deny that she was flattered by the thought of being chief operating officer. And she accepted the notion of a young and dynamic chairman, for the very reasons put forward by Alistair.

She had only one reservation. The suggested candidate was not available. She had been thinking through her approach with Alistair and how to tell him this news when she received a text. She picked up the mobile from her pillow.

“Want to send you a(nother) text. Ok?”

She hesitated before replying to him. He had never done this before. Had Alistair spoken to him already? Was it a text she would enjoy receiving?

“Providing I want to read it, go ahead.”

It was six minutes before the message arrived. She looked at it in total amazement.

“I want to walk down the Mall holding your hand xx.”

She read it and re-read it.

She then curled up in her bed, relishing these words. They said everything. He was picturing the two of them, together, strolling down one of the most beautiful avenues in the world. Ahead of them was a palace of dreams, a life together, a partnership of love. She read the words once again. Perhaps she was allowing herself to be carried away with schoolgirl romance. Yet the sheer thought of simply walking together, holding hands, captured for her the essence of their promised relationship.

She pictured the slow, leisurely meander under the trees and alongside the parks. He wanted to hold her hand as they walked down the Mall.

She wanted that too.

It was Friday 17 June. Superintendent Obuma was struggling to contain his anger, even though the Masters’ solicitor was being pedantic about the rules. He was threatening a formal complaint about the late arrival of a search warrant, requiring compensation for the damage to the premises and alleging intimidation of his clients.

Gerald and Alice Masters were behaving in a childlike manner, playing with each other’s hands and giggling.

“She’s a lovely girl,” said Alice. “Can we have her back, please? We made her happy. She really liked the peach melba ice cream.”

Sarah Rudd was with the chief superintendent.

“They had planned it meticulously, ma’am. Gerald Masters had converted the back of his delivery van into a little home for her. It was, of course, air-conditioned and Tabitha was comfortable there. In the afternoons she was taken about ten miles west to a secluded forest just south of the M4 motorway, where they’d have a picnic together. One of our officers had mentioned that she’d noticed there were different people serving in the shop but I failed to register the significance of this. One was Alice’s mother. She must have known.”

Sarah rubbed her eyes. She was exhausted. Chief Superintendent Gardner picked up her desk phone and asked for more coffee to be brought in.

“They hadn’t chosen Tabitha specifically,” continued Sarah. “They had young children in their shop all the time and especially at the end of the school day. When Gerald saw the tanker crash he rushed round to his yard and pulled his van into the side road. He spotted Tabitha wandering outside the school gates looking for her mother and he snatched her. Of course, he later told us his van was at the garage for repairs. We never thought to check that statement. I’m so sorry.”

The secretary came in with a tray and Sarah accepted a second cup of strong black coffee.

“Normally he would have been caught within hours but the lorry incident proved decisive. Everybody, including us, was rushing all over the place. Nobody saw him do it. Every time we searched their premises he was out in his van. He showered incessantly so the dogs picked up nothing from him.”

“Did we make any mistakes, chief inspector?” asked Avril Gardner.

“Yes,” replied Sarah. “I should have found her that first evening. It always had to be Gerald Masters. His story was weak and there was no other suspect. I missed the obvious.”

As she tidied up her office, she sent a text to her long-suffering husband.

“Coming home. Oodles of love. S x”

As she left the police station, heads were nodded and hands put together. DCI Rudd was being acknowledged as a truly professional police officer. She had linked the absence of Mr Masters’ van with the police visits. He had managed to outsmart the search teams. She had spotted the pattern, found Tabitha and earned their respect.

Later that morning, Nigel Brewer was arrested by Superintendent Obuma. The day before, DCI Rudd had ordered a complete search of his house. She had discovered that, although he lived on the school premises, he had a home in Southall. There had been a delay in obtaining the search warrant.

The police found nothing to incriminate the caretaker. Ten hours later, the technician found 257 pictures of naked girls from the ages of three to fifteen on his computer. He had deleted them two days earlier, but they were recovered from the remnants still available on the hard drive.