Thicker Than Water (3 page)

Jessica had been on many call-outs with Izzy in the past and, given the woman’s bright red hair and good looks, she was almost always eyed – even briefly – by the men they
visited. After confirming his identity as Cameron Sexton, Jessica knew instantly something strange had happened because he barely gave the constable a second glance. Instead, he invited them into
the living room, pointing them towards the sofa and continuing to pace.

‘Are you all right, Mr Sexton?’ Jessica asked.

He was wearing a jumper over a shirt, which was half-untucked from his jeans. He fiddled with his sleeve for a moment before stopping and sitting in an armchair opposite, fixing Jessica with a
stare. ‘I don’t know if we should be angry or worried,’ he said.

Cameron went on to explain that he and his wife had come home from an evening out to find their front door open and the babysitter missing.

‘I understand your child is fine?’ Jessica asked.

Cameron nodded. ‘She slept through it all last night. We took her to the hospital this morning, just in case, but everything is fine.’

‘How long have you been using Oliver Gordon as a babysitter?’ Jessica asked.

‘Six or seven months? He would come over once a month or so and we would pop out for something to eat. It wasn’t even necessarily for us to have an evening away, more so that Lara
could get used to being with other people and also, I suppose, to get Eleanor used to not being with her all the time.’

‘Why Oliver?’ Izzy asked, before adding: ‘I mean, why not a relative?’

Jessica wondered if the constable was thinking about her own child and how she had left Amber with her parents-in-law.

Cameron continued to tug nervously at his clothes. ‘No reason really. Ellie’s parents aren’t around any more and mine live quite a distance away. Oliver is the son of one of
Ellie’s friends so we’ve known him a bit as he’s grown up. It was just one of those things.’

Izzy nodded, apparently satisfied.

‘Is it always Oliver that you use?’ Jessica asked.

Cameron responded with another nod and then continued, ‘We phoned his parents last night to see if he had gone home but obviously he hadn’t. That’s when they called
you.’

‘And you found Oliver’s mobile phone?’

Cameron stood and walked around to the doorway to show the two officers exactly where it had been left on the floor, then took the device out of a drawer underneath the television and handed it
across before sitting back down. Jessica put it in a plastic bag just in case but the fact it had already been picked up and handled meant it was unlikely they would be able to get anything useful
from it.

‘I was really angry last night,’ Cameron said. ‘At first we thought he had just left and gone home. Then, when we called his parents, we realised he wasn’t there. They
said to call his mobile but I had already found it here. Then they started panicking.’

‘Is he usually reliable?’ Jessica asked.

‘Always. I mean, he’s like most people that age; he’s a bit quiet but that’s just being a teenager, isn’t it? He gets here early and there have never been any
problems in the past. Plus Lara always liked him. She can’t say his name properly and giggles about it. She calls him “Dolly”. We keep saying it’s “Ollie” but
she can’t seem to say the word without putting a “D” at the front.’

Jessica already had the briefest details of Oliver’s past but he had no record of anything, other than being born and attending a private school just outside the city.

‘Have you spoken to his parents?’ Cameron added.

‘Officers have been there,’ Jessica replied. ‘We’re heading there next. We wanted to visit you first to establish exactly what happened. What was the house like when you
got home?’

Cameron shook his head, as if not wanting to remember. ‘It’s hard to describe. It looked normal but it didn’t feel right. Have you ever walked into a room and thought,
“Something’s gone on here”? It was like that. As soon as I got in the front door, I had this feeling.’

Jessica had an inkling of what he meant.

Cameron shivered, perhaps recalling the moment, before continuing: ‘After I saw Lara sleeping upstairs, I didn’t know what to think. I was angry, then worried. Then I thought maybe
someone had broken in.’

‘Did you check to see if anything was missing?’

‘We went all around the house. All the obvious stuff is here: the televisions, our stereo, things like that. Then we checked the drawers in our bedroom to see if any of Ellie’s
jewellery had gone. None of it is expensive anyway but there’s no reason for a burglar or someone else to know that. I can’t say for certain nothing’s missing but, if it is, we
don’t know what’s gone.’

‘Did you check his phone when you found it?’

Cameron tugged at his eyebrow guiltily. ‘I . . .’

‘You’re not going to be in trouble if you did,’ Jessica assured him. She was hoping there might be an easy solution.

‘I had a look, that’s all, but I couldn’t even get to the keypad bit because it had this lock screen thing. I thought he might have called someone or something like
that.’

Jessica knew their experts would be able to check but it did seem strange that Oliver had left his phone behind when leaving the house.

‘Does anyone else have a key for the property?’ she asked.

Cameron shook his head. ‘Just me and Ellie. We don’t even keep a spare with the neighbours or hidden in the garden. I guess that’s pretty stupid in some ways, if we ever were
to lose ours. We’re not that friendly with the neighbours but would be able to call them in an emergency. It’s not that we don’t get on, we just don’t talk that much.’
He pointed to one side, then the other. ‘They moved in about six months ago, while they’ve been here for years. You wave to say hello but that’s about it.’

Jessica knew it was pretty much the same everywhere. After she had moved into her old flat, her father had told her during one of their almost-regular phone conversations to go and meet the
neighbours. He had then told her off when she admitted two weeks later that she hadn’t bothered. ‘That’s why the country’s going to the dogs,’ he insisted. Jessica
didn’t necessarily disagree but, dogs or not, she still couldn’t be bothered with saying hello to complete strangers.

After checking they had the correct details for all the timings, the officers said their goodbyes and indicated they would be in contact when they had news.

Back in the car, any awkwardness had disappeared. ‘What do you reckon?’ Izzy asked as Jessica drove.

Jessica began to speak then stopped herself. ‘You tell me. First day back, let’s see how much you’ve forgotten.’

Izzy laughed. ‘Well, I believe him for a start. He didn’t look shifty as such, just uncomfortable.’

‘They’ve probably chopped him up and buried him under the patio,’ Jessica replied, joking.

Izzy didn’t laugh. ‘Why send us? Why not uniform?’

‘I don’t know but I can guess it’s the usual reason – covering our arses. There’s no point in sending a Scene of Crime team because, as far as we can tell, no crime
has taken place. Nothing’s been taken, the child is still there. On the surface, it’s just a teenager who has disappeared – and he’s not even been gone that long. The only
problem is, if something major has happened and we hadn’t looked into this stuff now, we’d get huge stick in the future. If Oliver turns up tomorrow and he’s just stormed out
after an argument with his girlfriend, then no harm done.’

‘Is that what you think has happened?’

Jessica didn’t speak for a moment, not because she didn’t know her own mind, simply because saying it out loud made it seem more real.

‘I think someone’s taken him.’

Jessica had no firm reasons for thinking someone had taken Oliver but had worked on enough cases, and interviewed enough people, to recognise the high likelihood that something
bad had happened. Without knowing much about the teenager, she could guess his type simply because of who Cameron and Eleanor were. They weren’t the sort of people who would dump their
daughter with anyone, which meant Oliver must at least appear to be conscientious and mature. Still, some people probably thought that about her, so that in itself didn’t prove much.

When she had been younger, she could vaguely remember the daughter of their old next-door neighbours coming to keep an eye on her every now and then. Usually, it involved the babysitter letting
her stay up slightly later ‘as long as you don’t tell your mum and dad’ and then, presumably, the girl sitting downstairs watching television and drinking copious amounts of
alcohol before hiding the evidence. Regardless of the small amount of work involved, it was still a position of trust and, while some parents might be happy to leave their children unsupervised or
with someone unsuitable, the Sextons certainly did not fall into that category.

Oliver’s parents were everything Jessica expected them to be. Their semi-detached house was immaculately kept with a nearly new car on the driveway. Owen Gordon was dressed in almost
identical clothes to Cameron and his wife Gabrielle was the epitome of middle-class with dyed hair, perfectly manicured nails and the vague air that she could be worked up into a moral outrage
about pretty much anything.

After the two officers were invited into the Gordons’ house, Jessica eyed the surroundings. She could guess from the walls that Oliver was an only child – and a spoiled one at that.
There were photos of him at every age all over the hallway, with nothing of anyone else.

In the living room, after confirming much of what she had already been told by Cameron, Jessica moved the topic from the events of the previous evening to Oliver himself. Both of his parents
insisted he had been acting normally over the past few days.

They were sitting closely together on the sofa, with Owen holding an arm around his wife’s shoulders. She was close to tears. He clutched a tissue in one hand, nervously brushing at
seemingly invisible flecks of dust on the armrest with the other.

‘Has he ever not returned home in the past?’ Jessica asked.

‘Never,’ Owen replied. ‘He isn’t late for anything.’

Jessica had expected as much. She had no reason to believe there was anything untoward from the response – but her parents never knew about the odd occasion she bunked off college with her
friend Caroline when they were younger. Teenagers always kept some things back from their parents.

‘Does he have many friends who might know where he’s gone?’ she added.

Oliver’s parents could only offer two names between them. ‘We called them last night and this morning,’ Owen said. ‘Ollie was always good about leaving details just in
case.’

After confirming the young man had no particular after-school interests and no part-time job, Jessica was left wondering what he actually did when he wasn’t studying or in his bedroom.
From what she had been able to gather, Oliver only had two close friends and rarely left the house. Her standard questions about whether he had ever run away before, or whether they had fallen out
recently, were all met with firm denials.

If everything was as claimed, Oliver had been an angelic child since birth who never got into trouble.

‘Does he have a girlfriend?’ Jessica persisted, desperately trying to hear something she could work with.

‘He’s focused on his studying,’ Gabrielle insisted, leaving Jessica to wonder if the woman remembered being a teenager herself. Admittedly Jessica hadn’t been a young
male but, from her recollection, seventeen-year-old boys usually only had one thing on their minds – and it certainly wasn’t college work.

Although it wasn’t something she would usually push, Jessica wanted to see if she could get a reaction. ‘Boyfriend?’ she asked, making sure she met both parents’ eyes.
She saw a second or two of panic in Owen’s face before he stumbled over a reply.

‘I don’t think he’s into that,’ he said, before clarifying quickly, ‘not that it would be a problem.’

‘I’m just trying to establish something that may have made him upset,’ Jessica said, trying to stay empathetic. ‘Usually when teenagers disappear, it might be because
they’ve fallen out with someone, maybe a friend or a parent. Or perhaps they are worried about something?’

Both parents looked on blankly.

‘Do you mind if we have a look around his room?’ Jessica asked. ‘I know you’ve probably checked already. We’re looking for anything that could help.’

Owen untangled his arm from his wife and stood, pointing towards the door, before leading them up a flight of stairs. More photos of Oliver lined the walls: there he was on the beach, in a park,
in the garden. Always by himself, always smiling. As they reached the top, the man must have noticed Jessica’s interest because he answered the question she hadn’t asked.

‘There were complications when he was born,’ Owen said. ‘Gabby couldn’t have any more children after Oliver. I know you probably think we’re a bit over-protective
but he’s our only child.’ He tailed off before adding: ‘He’s all we have.’

Jessica felt Izzy’s hand touch her gently on the back. No one spoke for a few moments before Owen turned and pointed to a doorway.

‘It’s that room there,’ he said.

The two officers entered and then waited until they had heard the man reach the bottom of the stairs.

‘Are you all right?’ Jessica asked.

Izzy pressed herself up against the back of the door. ‘It’s hard to describe. It’s probably because I’ve been off for so long but, before, it was easier to take a step
back and see everything as a case. Now, everyone is someone else’s child.’ She ran her hands through her hair and shook her head dismissively, as if telling herself not to be so stupid.
‘What are we looking for?’

They both knew the question was rhetorical and Jessica didn’t reply. Instead, she stood in the corner and took in the room.

The walls were clear, except for two posters; one that seemed to relate to a video game, the other a print of a Salvador Dalí painting. Oliver had a king-size bed to himself, which was
facing a flatscreen television on top of a wide dresser with a games console next to it. A few hardback books were on a bookcase in the opposite corner with a small telescope, but it was mainly
occupied by stacks of films as well as a few computer games.