Finders Keepers Page 2

  ‘Deal?’ said Gary, and stuck out his hand.

  Steven looked at Lewis, who avoided his eyes – the bloody coward – and then at Ronnie, who gave him an encouraging nod.

  ‘OK then,’ said Steven miserably, and tried to shake the man’s outstretched hand, only to be embarrassed to realize that it was held out palm-up for the money, not to seal the deal like gentlemen. Gary laughed as he fumbled, and Steven felt like a boy among men.

  Feeling slightly sick, he took out the envelope stuffed with notes and – like Jack handing over his mother’s cow for a handful of magic beans – gave it to Gary.

  He wanted desperately to ask for a receipt, as his mother had insisted he must, but Gary had already stuffed the money into his back pocket and was picking up one of the boxes.

  ‘Give you a hand,’ he said, as if he wanted rid of the evidence as quickly as possible before anyone rumbled his scam.

  Lewis took the frame, which was the lightest thing on offer, Ronnie picked up the other box despite his limp, and Steven took a wheel in each hand.

  They loaded what Steven desperately hoped was a complete motorcycle into the trailer Ronnie had borrowed from somewhere, and got into the Fiesta. Lewis in the front, Steven squashed up behind with an old greyhound, which was obviously used to stretching out on the back seat – and which gave way only grudgingly, before flopping back down across his legs.

  They drove back to Ronnie’s home in Shipcott too fast, and with the dog’s bony elbows sticking into Steven’s thighs round every precarious turn.

  4

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR REYNOLDS was worried about his fringe. He was worried about the girl as well, of course, but his fringe was a constant and the girl was just a case, like those that had come before and many that would follow. She had probably run away. Most of them had. If not – if she had been abducted – then she would be found or she would not; she would live or she would die – or she would live the rest of her life in a way that would make her wish she could die.

  It sounded callous, but that was just the way things were with missing children. Naturally, Reynolds would do everything in his power to find her, but right now the girl’s fate was an open-ended question. His fringe, on the other hand, was here to stay.

  He hoped.

  He examined it in the mirror and pushed it first to one side and then the other. It was a chilly morning and so he’d chickened out and worn a woollen beanie in to work. But he couldn’t hide for ever. Somehow the plugs looked more obvious here under the cold fluorescents of the gents’ toilet at Taunton police station than they had in his bathroom at home.

  He pushed the fringe back the other way. It made no difference. He sighed. Maybe he shouldn’t have let them cut it so short, but the spectre of Elton John’s moptop had made him uncharacteristically macho.

  Fuck it.

  He’d spent almost four thousand pounds of his hard-earned savings on the bloody things – he couldn’t hide in the bogs all day.

  DI Reynolds took a deep breath and banged out of the toilets to take charge of the hunt for Jess Took.

  *

  You don’t love her.

  Reynolds had the note with him in an evidence bag for safekeeping. He’d ordered its presence at the possible crime scene not to be made public. If Jess Took had been abducted, then it was a detail that could be useful in trapping her kidnapper in a lie. Alternatively it could weed out the weirdos who might like to claim the crime as their own.

  He’d looked at it a hundred times as they drove from Taunton to Exmoor. Jess Took had only been missing for thirty-six hours and the graphologist hadn’t wanted to commit himself without further investigation, but had told him that, due to the care taken with the lettering, the note was unlikely to have been written by a person who wrote every day. Very helpful. That really narrowed it down. Who the hell wrote every day – or any day – using a pen and paper? Reynolds himself couldn’t remember the last time he’d picked up a pen with any real purpose other than to jot a few notes or to click the end of it while he mused. It was all keyboards now. Words were created and disappeared into a box and then you switched them off and back on again and hoped that they were still there. Reynolds was all for the paperless office, but for some reason the Taunton Serious Crime office seemed more paperful by the week. It was an enigma, he thought, wrapped in endless reams of A4.

  He smiled inwardly and wished he could have said something that clever out loud and to an appreciative audience. Detective Sergeant Elizabeth Rice was far from dull, but she did not share his erudition.

  Rice was, however, a conscientious driver and Reynolds always handed her the keys. Then he could think, instead of being plagued by the mirror, signal, manoeuvre mantra that had been driven into his head so hard by his father that it had never found its way out again.

  The roads started twisting the moment they left the motorway. There was no transition: one minute they were in the twenty-first century, the next in what felt like the 1950s. Thorn trees and hedges squeezed narrow lanes between them like black toothpaste curling out across Exmoor, and Reynolds knew that in his pocket his mobile phone would already be casting about for a signal.

  ‘It feels weird to be back.’

  Rice could not have mirrored his feelings more accurately.

  Reynolds had not been back since a killer had cut a brutal swathe across the moor. Not since he’d driven Jonas Holly home from hospital just over a year ago and sworn to him that they’d catch the man who’d murdered his wife.

  That hadn’t happened.

  But he had phoned Jonas on three separate occasions – each time more suspicious than the last that the man was screening his calls, and guiltily relieved by it: he was never phoning with any positive news. The few skinny forensic leads they’d had had dwindled to nothing and, although the case was still officially open, Reynolds knew that it would take a huge stroke of luck or another murder to see it shuffle its way back to the top of Homicide’s must-do list.

  He remembered that as recently as this January – a year after her death – Jonas Holly’s answerphone still had his wife’s voice on it. ‘Hi, you’ve reached Jonas and Lucy. Please leave a message and we’ll call you back, or you can ring Jonas on his mobile …’

  The voice of a ghost.

  It gave Reynolds the creeps.

  ‘It does,’ he agreed with Rice. ‘Very weird.’

  It also felt strange to be in a grubby white van instead of an unmarked pool car. The van was a genuine one from RJ Holding & Sons Builders in Taunton. Roger Holding was a cousin of the desk sergeant, and had offered the loan of one of his vans so they could approach the Took family without revealing their identities. Kidnapping for ransom was virtually obsolete now outside some Eastern European communities, but it was best to follow procedure until they were sure. However, Reynolds thought Elizabeth Rice looked suspiciously attractive to be behind the wheel of a builder’s van, even in jeans and sweatshirt, and with her straight blonde hair tied into a utilitarian ponytail. He should have brought Tim Jones from drugs, who looked and smelled like a navvy.

  The van was littered with fast-food wrappers and underfoot was a dirty magazine, in every sense of the word. Reynolds had spotted it as he climbed into the cab, and had spent the whole journey trying to cover as much of it as possible with his feet, so that Rice would not be offended or – worse – make a joke about it.

  He put the note back in the folder on his lap labelled JESSICA TOOK, and stared at the photo of the girl.

  When it came to vanishing teenagers, the word ‘runaway’ was always above the word ‘abducted’ on the list of possibilities. Even an ostentatious liberal like Reynolds knew that if they treated every teenage disappearance like a kidnap, they’d spend their lives winkling sulky kids from under their best friends’ beds or throwing a big net over them in London bus stations. The truth was that most kids simply went home, and – unless there was clear evidence of abduction – there was an unofficial 24-hour period when it was assumed that that was exactly what would happen.

  It hadn’t happened in this case. Yet. The file told Reynolds that the local community beat officer had been called and had cautiously started the ball rolling – calling friends and family, searching woods and outbuildings near Jess’s home. If she’d been eight years old, the Seventh Cavalry would have been dispatched at once. But thirteen? There were different attitudes to teenagers. So Sunday had been a ‘wait and see’ day. Wait for Jess to get cold or bored or hungry or forgiving, and see her walk up the driveway to either her father’s home or her mother’s. When she didn’t appear at either by Sunday lunchtime, Taunton was alerted, Reynolds was assigned and the case took on an official urgency.

  Now – on Monday morning – it would begin in earnest: the formal interviews with friends and family, the organization of the searches and of the scores of volunteers who were sure to come forward. The discreet but close examination of every single one of those volunteers, in case one might be the kidnapper trying to insert himself into the investigation. Or herself, Reynolds thought. Best to keep an open mind about these matters. Although, of course, women who stole children generally took babies, out of some kind of primal desperation. Men who stole children, on the other hand …

  Reynolds didn’t bother completing the thought. Imagining what might be happening to Jess Took was counterproductive to the point of madness. He needed to keep a little distance from the nitty-gritty of such an investigation to maintain any sense of perspective.

  Rice hadn’t said anything about his hair.

  Reynolds wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

  Rice gave a low whistle as they swung round a bend in John Took’s driveway. ‘Nice,’ she said, and it was.

  A whitewashed longhouse covered in great clumps of wisteria faced the wide gravel drive. Alongside was a block of half a dozen stables. The large garden was mown and edged to within an inch of its life. There were three cars on the driveway – none worth less than a year’s salary to a Detective Inspector.

  Reynolds immediately put ‘ransom’ up to number two on his chart of possible motives for the kidnap of Jess Took.

  Inside, the house was furnished with a surfeit of money and a dearth of taste. There were several overstuffed tartan sofas, a dozen garish hunting scenes, and a brass and glass coffee table straining under the weight of a bronze horse almost big enough to ride.

  John Took was a broad man with the florid complexion that comes from drink or weather. Reynolds wondered which it was. Possibly both. There were two women in the house, too – Jess’s mother, Barbara, and Took’s girlfriend, Rachel Pollack, who with her large blue eyes and long blonde hair was just a younger, slimmer version of Barbara.

  Slimmer and dimmer, Reynolds gathered from just a few minutes’ discourse with them both. Perfect for a man in the throes of a mid-life crisis. Reynolds had never been married but was pretty sure he’d be better at it than most men. He’d once seen a bumper sticker that said A WIFE IS FOR LIFE, NOT JUST THE HONEYMOON. Too true.

  The dynamics of this threesome were interesting. Although Rachel clutched John Took’s hand throughout in a show of sympathy bordering on custody, it was plain to see that the real connection here – the blood connection – was between Took and his ex. They shared the same shaky tension, the same brittle hope, the same disregard for anything that was not Jess-related. More than once, Reynolds saw Rachel’s mouth tighten petulantly as she watched the interplay.

  They hadn’t had any contact from anyone claiming to have abducted Jess.

  ‘If we had, we’d feel better,’ said Barbara Took, and Reynolds felt the same way. Knowing was always better than not knowing. And they’d have somewhere to start.

  ‘Does Jess have a boyfriend?’ he asked, and both parents shook their heads vehemently.

  ‘She’s only thirteen,’ said Took.

  ‘I would know,’ said Barbara.

  Reynolds put a question mark next to the word ‘boyfriend’ in his notebook.

  He asked to see Jess’s room – the best one in the house, and messy in the way that only teenagers know how to pull off. It set Reynolds’s teeth on edge and made him happy he didn’t have kids.

  ‘Mr Rabbit!’ said Barbara Took tearfully, picking a floppy old toy off the floor. ‘She would never leave Mr Rabbit.’

  That was complete rubbish, of course. Even Reynolds knew that. Teenagers were a selfish bunch and unlikely to be anchored by a childhood toy if they had a boyfriend waiting in the wings.

  Barbara’s ex-husband turned to give her a comforting hug and Rachel reached out and stroked the other woman’s shoulder awkwardly, with a hand that was tipped with bright-red talons.

  ‘Where’s her phone?’ asked Reynolds.

  ‘I found it next to the horsebox,’ said Took. ‘She must have dropped it. Your lot have it now.’

  ‘What about her make-up bag?’ asked Rice.

  ‘She doesn’t wear make-up,’ said Barbara and then looked at John Took questioningly. ‘She doesn’t when she’s with me, anyway.’

  ‘Nor me,’ countered Took immediately, and let her go.

  The bedside table held a little mirror on a stand but the drawer underneath revealed nothing but junk – bits of costume jewellery, keyrings with cartoon characters on them, coins, creams, a broken phone, and about fifty different kinds of hair clip.

  Rice noticed a backpack at the foot of the bed. ‘Is that her school bag?’

  ‘Yes. John takes her on Mondays and I pick her up.’

  Rice rummaged inside and quickly came up with a small pink make-up bag containing strawberry lip gloss, mascara and two five-pound notes. Barbara Took glared at her ex-husband, but Reynolds and Rice exchanged another kind of look entirely. If Jess Took had simply run away, make-up and money would have been the real essentials, whatever the hell Mr Rabbit said.

  They filed back downstairs and Reynolds went through procedures with them. How things would work: how the search would be organized; arranging a similar visit to Barbara Took’s home; assignment of a family liaison officer; and, finally, what to do in case of a note or call demanding ransom.

  ‘I don’t have any money,’ said Took. ‘The horses take it all.’

  This was such a ridiculous statement that – in the circumstances – everyone in the room did him the courtesy of ignoring it.

  Reynolds asked Took and his ex-wife whether they had any enemies. It was a standard question and rarely elicited a positive response.

  Barbara shook her head, but John Took said breezily, ‘Sure, who doesn’t?’

  Reynolds was taken aback. So, apparently, was Barbara.

  ‘Not anyone who’d kidnap Jess!’

  Took shrugged. ‘Nowadays who knows? People are such fucking arseholes.’

  And the mystery of the enemies is quickly solved, thought Reynolds.

  *

  At the foot of Dunkery Beacon, John Took’s horsebox stood alone. The entrance to the makeshift car park had been barred with a strip of police tape. A few cars and an empty police Land Rover were parked on the verge. There was no sign of the matching officer.

  After a minute stood turning aimlessly on their own axes, Rice pointed out a DayGlo flash behind some nearby gorse and they watched as a portly policeman zipped up and then emerged to return to his car. His pace picked up as he realized he was no longer the sole representative of the Avon & Somerset force on the Beacon.

  Reynolds introduced himself and Rice but pointedly declined to shake hands.

  ‘If you’re going to relieve yourself in public, take off your hi-vis, will you? People can see you taking a leak from bloody Wales.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘When was the scene set up?’

  ‘Last night.’

  Shit. Almost forty-eight hours after Jess disappeared. The forensics would be a joke.

  ‘You have the girl’s phone?’

  ‘I don’t know about that, sir. You’d have to speak to the beat officer who called it in.’

  ‘Jonas Holly?’

  The man looked surprised, then careful. ‘No, sir. He’s on leave.’

  Still? Reynolds said nothing. He’d rather not have to explain how he was the man who’d failed to catch the killer of Jonas’s wife. Ipso facto: if he’d done his job, then maybe Jonas would have made it back to work by now. Even so, Reynolds couldn’t help being relieved that he hadn’t. He didn’t need a reminder of past failures. Or of that hug – God forbid. The last time he’d seen the man, Reynolds had hugged him in an embrace that had been all him and no Jonas. Hugged him and promised to catch his wife’s killer. Reynolds couldn’t decide now which empty gesture he was more embarrassed by.

  Reynolds told the patrol officer that forensic teams would be arriving within the hour. Until then no one was to cross the police tape. Obviously.

  ‘Whose cars are these?’

  ‘Walkers. I’ve been getting flak all morning for the car park being closed.’

  Reynolds almost smiled at the flat dirt area being described as a car park.

  He was keen to take a look inside the horsebox, but their leads on this case might be few and far between, without him and Rice adding their footprints to the dust alongside it.

  They’d wait.

  Reynolds had always prided himself on his patience.

  5

  THERE WAS A new girl. Emily Carver.

  Steven tried not to look at her, but even the act of looking away from her made him self-conscious. When it was safe, he stared at the back of her head, where her thick brown hair was caught loosely in a green velvet ribbon.

  Mr Peach had to call his name twice before he confirmed that he was present.

  However, Emily’s sudden appearance in class caused barely a ripple, due to the equally sudden disappearance of Jessica Took.

  The school was alight with that news. Excitement crackled through every class like cinema sweets. The ADD kids and the ADHD kids, and the kids who were simply angling for a label so they’d have an excuse, took the opportunity to be extra ‘challenging’. Knots of girls stood around outside classrooms, tearful and hugging each other as if they’d all known Jess personally – and daring the boys or the teachers to question that sisterhood. In retaliation, the excluded boys took refuge in ghoulish speculation. Words that were too harsh for girls or adults to say out loud were common currency for the boys – worst-case scenarios shouted down corridors, and kicked about freely on the daisy-strewn playing field.