Dead End (31 page)

Zoe's mother led them into a narrow hallway with yellowing wallpaper and a grey carpet. There was a faint musty smell of damp and stale cigarette smoke. Mrs Mason stopped at the foot of a steep staircase and leaned forwards, holding onto the banister.

‘Zoe!’ she shrieked, her voice suddenly shrill. ‘Get down here!’ There was no answer. ‘She's listening to her music. You'll have to go up.’

A pink sign was displayed on one of the doors: ‘Zoe's Room’. There was no response when Geraldine knocked. She banged more loudly on the door. Still no answer. Gingerly she pushed the door open. A strong sweet aroma of joss sticks hit her as she picked her way through piles of magazines which lay inside the door like a barrier: Heat, Closer, Star. In the dim light of a lava lamp she saw an open wardrobe stuffed with clothes, most of which seemed to be black. A girl was lying on the bed, her eyes closed, feet tapping, listening through headphones.

‘Zoe,’ Geraldine called. The girl didn't move. ‘Zoe!’ she shouted. The girl's eyes flickered open and she turned her head. Seeing Geraldine in the doorway, she sat up suddenly, yanking her headphones off. ‘May we come in and talk to you for a moment?’

‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ She was pretty, with dyed blonde hair and blue eyes which looked unnaturally large, outlined in black eyeliner.

Geraldine stepped into the room. ‘Hello, Zoe, my name's Geraldine. I'm a police officer and I would like to ask you a couple of questions. This is Roger, and he'd like to take a look at your computer.’

Zoe looked away and fiddled with the headphones that were lying beside her on the bed. ‘I'm sick. I can't go to school. Ask my mum. She'll tell you.’ She gave an unconvincing cough.

Geraldine reassured her that they hadn't come round to find out why she wasn't at school. ‘It's about a girl we think you may know who's gone missing.’

Zoe looked up with sudden interest. ‘Missing? What, you mean like run away? Who is it? Who's missing?’

‘Lucy Kirby.’

‘Lucy?’ Zoe pulled a face. She seemed disappointed. ‘Like who's going to notice?’

‘Zoe, this is very important. I need you to tell me where Lucy is.’

‘How would I know?’

Geraldine took a step nearer. ‘We found messages on Lucy's computer –’

‘You looked at her computer?’ Zoe picked up her headphones again and fiddled with them as she spoke. ‘You shouldn't do that. Did you look at her Facebook page?’

‘We looked at everything.’

‘It wasn't me,’ Zoe burst out, suddenly apprehensive.

Geraldine spoke as gently as she could. ‘What wasn't you, Zoe?’

‘Well, maybe I did join in a bit. But it was mainly the other girls.’

‘What other girls?’

‘I don't know. I can't remember.’

‘What were the other girls doing?’ Zoe didn't answer.

Geraldine thought about the comments on Facebook. ‘Were they bullying Lucy online?’ Zoe shrugged and stared at her legs stretched out in front of her on the bed. ‘It's very important you tell me the truth, Zoe.’

‘We only did it for a laugh,’ Zoe said. ‘It was only a few things we said. It was just a joke, you know. We all do it, lark about with each other. Only some people have got no sense of humour. She's a dork.’

‘Zoe, tell me where Lucy is.’

‘I can't.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I've got no idea where she is. Why would I? Ask her dad.’

‘Zoe,’ Geraldine spoke very slowly. ‘We know Lucy was sending messages to a friend called Zoe shortly before she left home, and we know she made arrangements to stay with Zoe.’

‘Well it wasn't me. My God, she wasn't my friend. She never sent me any messages and I never emailed her. Why would I want to do that? She was weird.’

‘How was she weird?’

‘You know, weird. No one liked her.’

‘And you're sure she never sent you any messages?’

‘I told you.’

‘Zoe,’ Geraldine took a step further into the room. ‘Would you allow us to take a look at your computer?’

The girl sat up and glared at Geraldine across the dimly lit room. ‘What do you want to do that for? I'm telling you, I never emailed Lucy Kirby. She's so sad.’

Geraldine glanced around. ‘May we?’ She nodded at a flat screen desktop on a small table. It was switched on.

‘Go on then, if it'll make everyone go away and leave me alone. But you won't find any messages from Lucy Kirby there, I can promise you that.’

The SOCO perched on Zoe's chair and began tapping at the keys.

Zoe slipped off the bed and crossed the room to stand at his shoulder. ‘My mum got it for me.’

‘You don't mind if I take a look then?’

‘You can look. You can fix it for me as well while you're at it. It doesn't work properly. It's rubbish.’

‘What's wrong with it?’

‘I don't know, do I?’

‘When did it stop working?’

Zoe shrugged. ‘I told my mum to get it fixed but she says we can't afford it. She says there's computers at school I can use, but what use are they to me here? They're crap anyway. Most sites are blocked. It would be different if it was her computer. She'd get it fixed straightaway if it was hers.’

‘So you haven't been chatting with Lucy on instant messenger?’ Geraldine insisted patiently.

‘With that weirdo? Are you joking?’

The SOCO checked and shook his head. ‘Nothing here, ma'am. We could send it off to be looked at but I don't think she uses Instant Messenger.’

‘I already told you that, didn't I?’ Zoe snapped. ‘And there's no way you're taking my computer away.’

‘Is there another Zoe at school?’ Geraldine asked.

‘No.’ The girl went and lay down on the bed again and picked up her headphones. ‘I've no idea where Lucy is, she wasn't my friend, and I never had any messages from her.’ She turned her head away and lay staring up at the wall.

Geraldine went back downstairs and found Zoe's mother in the kitchen. After some resistance, she agreed to allow Geraldine and her colleague to look around. They searched every room in the tiny house, the attic and the garden but there was no sign of Lucy Kirby. It seemed Zoe Mason had been telling the truth. Ignoring Zoe's foul mouthed objections, Geraldine instructed the SOCO to take the computer away to be checked, just in case, although she was convinced Zoe was telling her the truth. She had been so sure they had discovered Lucy's friend, Zoe, and now it seemed they were no closer to tracking down the missing girl.

While Geraldine had been away from the station, a report had been received from the Lambeth Labs, and an emergency meeting was convened on her return to bring everyone up to speed.

‘I wonder if Lucy's brother knows of any other friends she had called Zoe. Perhaps someone from York?’ the DCI suggested, when Geraldine had told them briefly about the futile visit to Zoe Mason.

‘Unlikely,’ Peterson said. He had been on the phone to Lambeth Labs discussing their report. ‘According to the messages from Zoe, she wasn't far from Faversham. And there's more. The Lab said Zoe's location was too carefully and consistently hidden for it to be accidental.’

‘What do you mean?’ Geraldine asked, her own anxiety reflected in the DCI's face.

The sergeant looked down at the notes he was holding. ‘Zoe's messages to Lucy were sent from a laptop with wireless internet access. The Lab traced the computer but it was bought for cash so there's no way of discovering the identity of the purchaser. The internet connection was pay as you go, so there was no contract, just an initial payment and one subsequent top up of fifty pounds, made with a voucher. We've checked the CCTV in the shop where it was purchased but there's nothing.’

‘Keep studying the film. Go through it frame by frame,’ the DCI said.

‘We have, ma'am.’

‘Well go through it again. There must be something. Start checking CCTV records of all recent voucher purchases.’

They all knew it was hopeless.

‘What about the location?’ Geraldine asked Peterson. ‘Haven't they got anywhere with that? Surely the Labs can give us the address the messages were sent from, or at least pin down the area?’

‘In theory, yes, but whoever was sending messages to Lucy Kirby was moving around.’

‘Moving around? What the hell do you mean?’ The DCI sounded angry.

‘Unless they catch the user online on the laptop, pinpoint the geographical location and move in straightaway, before the user moves on, they have no way of finding out where the messages are being sent from. They think Zoe – whoever that is – must have been sending messages from a car, driving around to make sure the laptop's whereabouts couldn't be identified while it was in use.’ There was a pause while the team registered the implications of what they had just heard. Zoe wasn't a child. ‘The chances are Zoe has disposed of the laptop by now,’ Peterson added. ‘In the final message Zoe told Lucy her father would pick her up.’

‘It seems Lucy Kirby has not gone to stay with a friend after all,’ the DCI summed up. ‘Whoever she met on the internet has deliberately groomed her and carried out a carefully planned abduction.’

Geraldine thought of the lonely, motherless girl and felt sick with fear at the new horrors that she might be facing.

56

JUSTICE

T
he whole operation was taking far longer than he had originally anticipated but his resolve never flagged. On the contrary, it was the only thing that kept him going. Without it he wouldn't have been able to continue living.

He heard nothing from his ex-wife who had abandoned him a long time ago, swept away into a new life with another partner. He didn't even know whether she had remarried. He didn't know where she lived and had been careful not to let her know his new address or even that he had moved. There must be no possibility of anyone interfering with his plans and her presence in his life could be nothing but a hindrance; he knew what he had to do and she would never have understood. It was strange to think they had ever been close. Thinking back on the time he had spent with her was like remembering the life of a stranger. All he cared about now was his own brief future. As long as he took them all with him it would be worth it and now there was only one left: the doctor who was still alive, prosperous and successful, and completely oblivious of his impending death. It would be soon now. Everything was in place.

It had been easy to arrange revenge on the girl. Dispatching the teacher had taken careful preparation but he'd pulled it off with consummate skill, deriving intense gratification from knowing her family must be suffering as he had suffered. He hoped their distress would persist for the rest of their lives, as raw as the day she died. Anything less would diminish their punishment. He had no desire to be merciful. What compassion had any of them shown? He was concerned only with justice. No one could blame him for that.

He had spent months pursuing the teacher, biding his time when she had been promoted to headmistress. The thought of her triumph had been bearable only because he was arranging her final defeat. There had to be justice and he had become its instrument, reluctantly at first, then joyfully as he discovered the exhilaration of punishing those responsible for an offence against an innocent girl. They might have evaded the flaccid justice system of the law courts but he would not absolve them. There could only be one outcome.

He had no difficulty gaining access to the hospital where the doctor worked and from there it had been easy to find out where he lived. He had been watching the doctor for a while now, making plans and thinking all the time about the girl. Her suffering was behind her now. Soon he'd be joining her and they would be together again at last.

‘It won't be long now,’ he whispered. ‘I'll be with you again very soon, my lovely girl.’

57

ESCAPE

T
he estate agent had left but Marion and Brian lingered on the pavement.

‘It would feel different if someone was living there,’ Marion said.

They stood for moment side by side gazing at the empty house, a large semi-detached property. A blue and orange ‘For Sale’ sign in the front garden stood at an angle, propped against the fence. On the detached side of the house was a narrow alley which led through to the next street, and beyond that a fence ran across the end of the road. The brickwork on the house had been well maintained but the paintwork on the old-fashioned sash windows looked flaky.

‘It's overpriced,’ Brian replied. ‘The outside needs work.’

‘We could make them an offer.’

‘There's no hurry. We've still got two more to see this week.’

‘If it wasn't empty –’

‘You like it, don't you?’

She nodded. ‘It's nice and quiet here at the end of the cul-de-sac’

Brian glanced around. ‘I'm as keen as you are to get our own place, but the last thing we want to do is make the wrong decision. I think we should at least look at the other two before we make up our minds.’

Marion followed him across the road to their car which was parked outside a detached garage. He had turned the car round so it was facing back the way they had come. Marion walked around the back to the passenger side. As she reached out to open the door she paused and stood, a look of intense concentration on her face.

‘Brian.’

‘What? Are you getting in?’

‘Brian, listen.’ Marion turned away from the car to stare at the dingy garage behind her.

‘What is it?’ Brian called out from the car.

Marion opened the door and leaned down to speak to him in an urgent undertone. ‘I think there's an animal or something trapped in that garage.’

‘What?’

‘There's something in there.’

‘Marion, just get in the car, will you?’

‘Brian, come here and listen.’

With a sigh Brian took his keys from the ignition, climbed out of the car and walked round the front of the vehicle to join his wife outside the garage. ‘It's filthy,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

‘Listen! There's an animal trapped in there. I heard it. We can't just ignore it. I think it's a dog.’

They stood listening for a few seconds then looked at one another in dismay.

Marion spoke first. ‘It's not an animal!’