You may have chosen the wrong moment to quit smoking, I thought, but I didn’t say, because you don’t – not to chief inspectors.
‘I’m assuming,’ he said at last, ‘that you have a line of inquiry you’d like to follow.’
‘We take DNA samples from both girls and their parents and then we test to see if they are who we think they are,’ I said.
‘And what do we tell them we’re doing it for?’
‘For elimination purposes,’ I said.
‘I know the Met has a reputation for being a bit free and easy with the facts,’ said Windrow. ‘But you do realise that we’re talking about the victims and the victims’ families here, and that we’re operating with the full sodding media pack camped outside our door. They may not know what the story is, but they can smell there’s a story. Not to mention that Sharon bloody Pike has an inside line to the Lacey family. Do you really think that, given all this, it would be a good idea to obtain DNA samples under false pretences?’
‘Sir . . .’ I said as neutrally as possible in the time honoured tradition of interrupting your senior officer when he’s being rhetorical.
‘If she is a . . . “substitute”,’ said Windrow, ‘what’s the worst case scenario?’
‘If she’s been swapped, then Nicole Lacey is still being held by whoever made the change,’ I said. ‘In which case, this is still a live kidnapping inquiry.’
And if there’s a case review and it turns up that we didn’t do our due diligence, then it wasn’t going to be me answering the tricky questions, was it?
Windrow nodded.
‘I want you to get the necessary authorisation from your governor and run this as an official Falcon line of inquiry,’ he said. That covered him from any case review, and it also gave him plausible deniability should it blow up in the press. ‘I also want you to be the one to approach the families and get the samples.’
I said I was fully prepared to do that.
‘And don’t discuss this with anyone but me and your boss – understood?’
I understood. He didn’t want any leaks to the press – or at least, in the event of there being a leak, he wanted to make sure it wasn’t traced back to the MIU or, bonus, the West Mercia Police. Mind you, this sort of compartmentalisation suited Nightingale down to the ground – someone had once told him in 1939 that loose lips sink ships and he obviously hadn’t seen any reason to change just because the war was over.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said and rushed off to obey.
Nightingale has his own attitude to the modern world. If he deems something necessary or useful – modern police communications, for example – he is perfectly willing to learn how to use it. This he does with frightening speed and efficiency, although anyone who’s spent a couple of months mastering a
forma
will find even the deeper mysteries of the Airwave handset a piece of piss. Still, I wasn’t looking forward to explaining to him the finer points of DNA fingerprinting, not least because I’d forgotten quite a lot of it myself. I was just about to start looking things up on the internet when I realised that it didn’t have to be me that explained it to Nightingale – I just needed to convince Walid, and then let him do all the heavy lifting.
‘Changeling, eh,’ said Dr Walid.
‘A possible substitution,’ I said. I was out on the canteen terrace, which was in full sunlight and no breeze at all, but got the best phone bars in the nick.
‘But not as a child?’
‘As an eleven-year-old,’ I said.
‘That would be a rare thing indeed,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to Thomas. Once he says yes, I’ll email you instructions as to how I want you to handle the samples.’
Once he says yes, I thought. Walid really wants that changeling DNA.
I heard a mechanical organ playing in the distance and looking over, across the railway tracks and the bypass, I could just see a swirl of movement amongst the trees. I realised it was a Sunday and the Steam Fair was open for business – not just a staging post after all. Very faintly, over the mechanical organ, the traffic noise from the bypass and the thrum of the generators, I could hear the sound of excited children.
How many of those kids would have been kept indoors until now?
Once I was done with Dr Walid it was time to check in with Inspector Pollock, who seemed to think it was time I took the initiative. I pulled out the disposable phone and texted,
Talk to me!
‘She’s not going to fall for this, you know,’ I’d told Pollock.
‘You never know,’ he’d said. ‘And it costs us nothing.’
I really hoped so.
While I was waiting to see which train would wreck first, I drove into Leominster proper and put in an order for another twenty detectors on the basis that I could always take them back to the Folly if I didn’t use them. Call Me Al was delighted. I was probably doubling his turnover that month. I thanked him for pointing out the UKUFOindex site and he asked whether I wanted to meet up with him and his mates at the pub later. I said I’d see if I was free.
I found a café off the main square which was decorated like a tea shop and served as fine a medley of greasy comestibles as any transport café in the country. Although they did share the regional obsession with providing a lineage for not just your pig but your eggs and potatoes as well. Criminally, I couldn’t tell you what it tasted like on account of the fact that I was practically drumming the table by that point. I was just about to distract myself by calling Beverley when Nightingale called and gave me the go-ahead to collect samples.
‘I know circumstances are fraught,’ said Nightingale. ‘But do try to be discreet.’
I checked my tablet and found I had an email with Walid’s instructions on how he wanted the samples collected, labelled and transported.
I don’t need to tell you how important getting a DNA sample from a changeling might be,
he wrote. We’d discussed setting up a database of ‘interesting’ DNA samples, but apparently there were legal issues. Patient confidentiality and human rights and all that.
Dominic’s mum had a fully equipped office.
‘From when she thought she was going to run this place as a B&B,’ said Dominic, as he helped me print off the consent forms I was required to get the parties to sign. ‘Do you want me to help?’
‘Your governor doesn’t want you involved,’ I said. ‘Besides, you must have actions piling up back at the nick.’
‘They’ve got me reviewing statements during the initial investigation,’ he said. ‘Occasionally I punch myself in the face to keep awake.’
‘If anything exciting happens, I’ll let you know,’ I said.
To avoid just that, I started with the Marstowes. And, to avoid the posse of photographers at the end of their cu-de-sac, I cut through the adjacent woods, hopped over their back fence and knocked on their kitchen door. Andy answered. He gave me a puzzled look as if trying to work out who the hell I was.
‘You’d better come in,’ he said.
He sat me down in the kitchen and offered me a beer which I declined in favour of a cup of tea. Despite the open window the kitchen was stuffy and there was the starchy overheated smell of baby food. Andy said that Ethan was poorly and that Joanne was upstairs dosing him with Calpol and would be down in a minute.
I asked him for samples and showed him the forms. He asked why and I decided to tell him the truth.
‘If Nicole is not really Nicole, then we should be able to tell by comparing her DNA to her parents,’ I said.
‘I get that,’ he said. ‘Why do you need ours?’
‘In case Hannah was the one that was swapped,’ I said. ‘This saves us having to make two trips to the lab.’
I watched his face as he parsed that and then he chuckled grimly.
‘Belt and braces,’ he said and signed the forms.
I took the swab using the collection kit that I’d borrowed from Dominic who, I realised, had left the Boy Scout scale behind and was now verging on Batman levels of crazy preparedness.
When Joanne came down, Andy persuaded her to sign and swab and then she persuaded Hannah – who wouldn’t stop giggling. Then I mounted a detector at the front and back doors, or rather I watched as Andy neatly screwed them into position himself.
‘Just a precaution,’ I said.
‘I don’t like the idea of being watched,’ said Joanne.
‘This doesn’t detect you,’ I said. ‘It’s not a motion sensor.’
‘What does it do?’ asked Andy.
‘Hopefully,’ I said, ‘if certain conditions are met, it will stop working.’
I slipped out over the back fence and made my way down the backs of the village gardens to the Old Vicarage and the Laceys. On the basis that what the eyes don’t see the mouth can’t complain about, I planted a detector in their huge back garden before banging on their back door.
They met me in what estate agents call a reception room, what I would have called a living room and no doubt Nightingale called a parlour – unless it was a drawing room. In a country home this is not a sign of favour.
They didn’t offer me tea.
Derek made a big production of checking the consent forms while Victoria sat beside him on the sofa with her lips compressed down to a line and her hands jammed between her knees.
‘I really don’t see why this is necessary,’ he said.
‘A big case like this,’ I said, ‘even forensic evidence can get challenged. You know, as to collection and that sort of thing. Better to have two sets of samples – that’s why they’ve got me collecting it because I’m not from West Mercia Police and I’m going to send my samples to a lab in London. Separate force, separate samples, separate lab, separate chain of custody.’
Derek was nodding his understanding but Victoria was just staring at me, not angry or hostile, just impatient with one more aggravation she didn’t need right now – thank you very much. Still, like the Marstowes, they signed the consents and opened their mouths for the cheek swab.
Victoria insisted on accompanying me when I took the sample from Nicole. I didn’t tell her that I was pretty much legally required to have an adult present – it’s easier to manage people if they maintain a sense of agency. She led me to the den where Nicole sat amongst a pile of discarded sweet wrappers and empty 600ml plastic Pepsi bottles. She had one in her hand when I walked in and was banging it idly against the floor – fascinated by the
boing
noise it made when it hit. The flat screen TV was showing
Hotel Transylvania
with the mute on – I judged it had got about halfway – and one of the Wii controllers nestled in an empty box of Milk Tray chocolates.
‘Nicky, love,’ said Victoria. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’
Nicole stopped banging the Pepsi bottle and turned to look at us.
I’d made a point to study pictures of Nicole Lacey taken just prior to her disappearance. In them she’d looked pretty but slightly odd, the combination of the straight blonde hair and the dark brown eyes meant that even with her photograph face on she stared out of the pictures with a peculiar intensity. She looked exactly the same in the flesh and if the eyes were different or changed then I couldn’t see it.
For a moment I was sure that my changeling theory had been totally wrong, but then Nicole smiled at me. It was a wonderful
it’s my birthday and I’ve got a pony
smile. As sincere as a cash donation and equally as suspect.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, springing to her feet.
‘My name is Peter Grant,’ I said.
‘Peter wants to take a—’ started Victoria, but Nicole didn’t seem to hear.
‘Mummy,’ she said. ‘There’s no more chocolate. Can I have some more chocolate?’
I felt the glamour underneath, and it was strangely harsh and commanding. A play-princess type of glamour, pink and sparkly and hard as plastic. Still, it had its effect. Victoria bobbed her head.
‘Of course, Princess,’ she said. ‘Anything for you.’
The little girl kept her eyes on Victoria’s back until she was safely out of the room, before turning her smile on me again.
‘You’ve got a funny face,’ she said.
‘I’m here to take a sample,’ I said, mainly just to buy time while I tried to work out what I was dealing with.
Was she a changeling? Nicole and Hannah had only been missing seven days. How would they, whoever
they
were, produce a duplicate in that time? Mind you, there was a spell,
dissimulo
, that could warp flesh and bone to fit a certain image. Could a substitute have been sculptured to look like Nicole? That would be very bad – when
dissimulo
let go the warped tissue fell apart. It was how Lesley had lost her face. I felt a twist of fear in my stomach that must have shown on my face because the little girl, who may or may not have been Nicole, frowned at me.
And the frown was like a slap in the face – or would have been, had I not built up a resistance to this sort of thing. Still, the girl didn’t have to know that. I made a point of looking stricken.
‘Do you like chocolate?’ she said. ‘I like chocolate – I don’t know why anybody eats anything else.’
‘Chocolate’s nice,’ I said. ‘So your name is Nicky, is it?’
There was a smear of chocolate in the corner of her mouth and a sticky sweet wrapper caught in the hair behind her ear.
‘I’m Nicole,’ she said primly. ‘But you can call me Princess.’
‘Well, Princess,’ I said, and pulled up out my sample kit and showed her the cotton bud. ‘I need to swab the inside of your cheek.’
‘What if I don’t want you to?’ she asked.
‘That wouldn’t be very nice,’ I said. ‘A proper princess would want to be helpful.’
She gave that comment the consideration it deserved.
‘I think no,’ she said, and I got the full changeling Princess Barbie effect complete with Ken’s house pool and the train-to-trot homicidal unicorn collectible set with realistic neighing. ‘But I don’t mind if you think that you did.’
You’re so busted, I thought.
I was just dithering about what to do next when I was saved by the return of Victoria with another woman in tow.
I recognised her at once.
‘Aunty Sharon’s here to see you again,’ said Victoria.
The journalist cooed hello to the fake Nicole before turning her beady eyes on me.