Snow Kills (5 page)

‘Mrs Harwood?’

‘Huh?’

‘It would be most helpful if you could do that as soon as possible.’

‘Yes, yes of course.’

‘And your phone number Mrs Harwood is?’

‘01422 ... 8831976.’

‘Your mobile number please, Mrs Harwood?’

‘I don’t have one... but Matt, her boyfriend, does and he will be with me.’

‘And it is?’

‘It’s er... 08927405210.’

Kim hadn’t gained the comfort from the call to the police that she had expected. If Kayleigh had got out of the car and started walking in the extreme weather conditions, who knows what had become of her? She shivered again. That didn’t bear thinking about.

Racing to the door, she snatched the photo of Kayleigh from the chair where she had left it. It was the most recent image of her daughter, taken at college. In a panic, she set off to Matt’s flat. The roads were passable, but sleet was falling and the roads were very slippery. Her mind was not on her driving and although the journey took twenty minutes, drawing up outside his home, she realised she didn’t remember driving through one traffic light or crossing a single road junction. Kim impatiently sounded the car horn. Time was of the essence if they were to find Kayleigh’s car before darkness fell. Her heart raced until she felt dizzy and she feared her anxiety might be out of control. Kim’s skin was burning. Her mind screamed, yet her voice was silent. After waiting a few moments and with no sign of Matt, she blasted the horn again. ‘Come on, come on, come on,’ she screamed. Rhythmically, she tapped the steering wheel.

Matt looked pale and dishevelled as he emerged from the flat’s entrance. Donning his hoodie, he stumbled unsteadily towards the car. His long, unkempt, dark curly hair was draped over his eyes in a long fringe and his jeans hung off his almost skeletal frame. ‘Fashion?’ she tutted, but Kayleigh loved every bone in his body, and that was all that mattered.

‘Where’s your coat?’ she snapped. ‘Do you want to catch your death?’ He looked at her blankly and proceeded to put on his seatbelt.

‘You smell like a brewery,’ said Kim, looking in her rear-view mirror.

‘Sorry,’ he sniffled.

‘Where the hell is she?’ Kim said, signalling to pull out.

‘I thought she was with you,’ he said.

‘What were you thinking, not getting in touch with her before now? You’ve never been out of touch for a whole week since you’ve been going out,’ Kim snapped, remembering the hours her daughter spent on the phone to him on the few occasions they weren’t together.

Matt shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Well?’

‘I’ve been ill.’

Kim cocked her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eyes.

‘Okay, I thought she had the hump with me. She could’ve rung me?’

‘Why would she have the hump with you?’

‘She asked if she could come to mine. I said I was at Dave’s. Why didn’t you ring her anyway?’

‘Our phone’s been out of order. If Marlene hadn’t rang me, I wouldn’t have known it was working today. You know I don’t have a mobile. Forget it! It’s no good arguing, we need to find her.’

Kim and Matt were driving slowly down the Manchester Road when they saw a stationary police car with its hazard lights flashing. ‘Kayleigh’s car,’ screamed Kim, slamming on the brakes as she drew in behind it. The pair jumped out and bounded towards the uniformed police officer who stood next to the coveted pink Ka.

‘It’s my daughter’s,’ she said, as her eyes frantically searched for a sign of Kayleigh inside.

‘PC Alan Hughes, Mrs …’

‘Harwood,’ she said, disregarding the officer and leaning forward, her hands cupped around her eyes in an attempt to peer through the windows.

‘Please,’ he said, holding out an arm to stop her from touching the car. Kim moved back as if she’d been burned. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘It might have to be fingerprinted at some stage.’

‘Fingerprinted? Why?’ she said raising her voice. PC Hughes saw her soft hazel eyes were full of anxiety.

 ‘I know this is very hard Mrs Harwood, but please try to stay calm. The vehicle is secure and it appears that it’s been parked as near as your daughter could probably get it to the kerb, under the circumstances,’ he said ‘Everything seems to suggest that your daughter left it here.’

Matt had his face firmly squashed to the passenger door window. PC Alan Hughes sighed.

‘Her mobile, it’s there in the foot well,’ shouted Matt.

‘I said don’t... touch the vehicle, sir,’ the officer said putting his gloved hand to his brow. ‘And you are, sir?’ he demanded, taking out his pocket book.

‘Matt, Kayleigh’s boyfriend,’ said Kim.

‘Matt what sir?’

‘Matt Prentice, why?’

‘So when I’m filling out my report I can say who touched the vehicle,’ he said in an accusing tone. ‘I’ll need your fingerprints for elimination.’

‘Look Constable, I know Kayleigh and she wouldn’t have left her mobile phone if she left the car of her own accord,’ Kim said, as she did a three hundred and sixty degree scan of the area.

‘Unless her battery was flat,’ Matt said thoughtfully.

‘If she did leave the vehicle to set off walking, which way do you think your daughter would go? Or did she get a lift?’

‘No,’ said Matt.

‘If someone picked her up they would have needed a four by four and they’d still have struggled to get through up here, that night,’ said the officer. ‘It’s hardly passable now.’

‘God, where is she?’ Kim said, her teeth chattering. PC Hughes couldn’t tell if it was with the shock, fear, or cold.

‘Do you know if she knows anyone around here?’ said the officer.

‘No,’ Matt and Kim said, shaking their heads in unison.

‘What was she wearing when you last saw her?’ PC Alan Hughes said, his pen hovering over a clean page of his pocket notebook.

‘She left the house to go to work. Her new boots, a skirt and her white fur jacket,’ said Kim. ‘You know what young girls are like, even if the weather is bad they still wear next to nothing.’

‘I do indeed,’ the officer said nodding in agreement. ‘I have a teenage daughter myself.’

‘I was told to take a recent photo of Kayleigh to the police station.’

‘That’s a good idea, we can get it circulated. By the sound of it, your daughter wasn’t dressed for the weather,’ the constable said pensively. ‘So it’s highly unlikely she would have set off walking far in the conditions that night. I’ll have a walk around the immediate area and make some house to house enquiries. There are only a few properties within walking distance when you reach this part of Manchester Road. It’s bleak up here at the best of times.’

Kim and Matt walked forlornly up and down the road for a while, looking over the dry stone walls and into the fields but their efforts were futile. They passed PC Hughes, who was walking up the path of the first property he had come upon, as they headed in the car for the police station.

The nearest house was an obvious starting point to the officer and the occupants of Ivy Cottage would be the subject of his first inquiry. He opened the porch door and stepped inside, but before he could rap the door knocker a dog barked from within and the door was opened.

‘Sorry to trouble you madam,’ said PC Alan Hughes. ‘I’m just making enquiries into the owners of abandoned cars on the roadside.’ The woman nodded her head. ‘There’s a pink Ka parked further up the road and there are concerns for the driver, who hasn’t been seen since the 7
th
January.’

‘Down!’ the old lady commanded of the Collie who dropped to the floor. ‘Ee lad, you must be perished. Would you like to come in out of the cold and have a brew?’

‘Thank you, that’s very good of you madam,’ he said.

‘Put wood in’t ole after y’ then.’

‘Don’t you lock your door madam?’ he said following the old lady down the corridor.

‘They’d have to bring it in to thieve it,’ she laughed like a drain.

‘Yes, quite,’ PC Hughes said as he moved to the side of the light bulb that hung low from the heavily nicotine-stained ceiling. He took off his hat. ‘A cuppa tea would be very welcome, thank you,’ he said, wiping his hands on his handkerchief as she showed him into the lounge.

The room housed a welcoming fire and he stood admiringly at the newly cut wood piled against an old fireback. The dancing flames reflected off the stripes on his luminous jacket. As he looked around the room, he could see that the wall paper had been there for a generation, but the dust was forgotten as he walked around to survey the antiques and the china in the dresser. As he stood warming his hands, the old lady reappeared with a cup and saucer. Gingerly, and rattling it in shaking hands, she passed it to PC Hughes without a drop spilt.

‘Many of them stuck?’ she asked the constable, nodding her head towards the outside.

‘Yes, there’re a few cars still there.’

‘We were warned early enough about it,’ she said, shaking her head wisely. ‘The last time it were so bad was, let me see,’ she said pulling on a hair or two on her chin. ‘It must be over twenty years ago. Same thing happened then, it came down just as quick and fast that they were stood on the snowdrifts with their arms resting on the top of that lamp posts out there.’

‘You haven’t got a television?’

‘I don’t bother, with that or newspapers. There’s nothing but bad news these days.’

‘I agree.’ he smiled.

‘We’ve got a young girl missing.’

‘Yes, I heard something about that on the radio. Any news?’

‘No, sadly nothing. She appears to have vanished into thin air.’

The old lady nodded her head. ‘Doesn’t sound good, does it I’ve been listening out for the updates.’

‘Do you live here alone Mrs ...? ’

‘Call me Nelly, yes it’s just us now, isn’t it girl?’ she said, patting the dog’s head.

PC Alan Hughes thanked her for the warm drink as he contemplated his host’s frail and transparent face. ‘Before I go, I couldn’t use your bathroom could I?’ he said.

‘Down the corridor on the right,’ she said with the flick of her wrist in the direction of the closet.

He chuckled to himself as he looked up at the top box cistern, and when he pulled on the chain it made a loud noise.

‘Thank you for your hospitality, Nelly,’ he said as he shook her bony old hand, and stepped back out into the porch.

‘You’re more than welcome son. I hope you find her soon.’

‘You know what the young ’uns are like today,’ he said, standing on the garden path. ‘If she’s anything like my daughter, she’ll probably turn up at her friend’s.’

‘Make your arms ache when they’re young and your heart ache when they grow up,’ she said as the top set of dentures fell down and she used her tongue to click them back into place.

PC Hughes walked down the path, tittering to himself. He unbolted the gate, turned to wave to the old woman who stood at the window of the porch and strode out in the direction of next door.

‘Don’t bother, Mavis’s away at her sister’s,’ Nelly called. ‘Don’t know when she’s back either. She never tells me anything these days.’

‘Thanks for that,’ said the officer, turning back towards his car. ‘You’ve saved me a journey.’

At Harrowfield Police station, Kim and Matt had almost completed filling in the Missing Persons report form that the front desk officer required of them.

‘Is there a possibility that someone she knows could live in the area?’ PC Jackie May said.

Matt shook his head and Kim shrugged. ‘We’ve been asked that before, but we don’t think so.’

‘They don’t have to be anyone that she’s particularly close to, just someone she might think to take refuge with.’

‘I don’t know of anyone, but one thing I do know is that if she had stayed over somewhere she would have at least tried to ring me, or Matt.’

‘I still live at home Mrs Harwood,’ said the constable gently, ‘but I don’t always ring my mum to let her know if I’m staying over at friends‘.’

‘But that’s just it. It’s not just one night, is it? It’s been a week and still not a word. We’ve seen her mobile phone inside her abandoned car, so we know she couldn’t use that, but Kayleigh would’ve found a telephone by now and made contact with one of us if she could. Something’s not right. I just know it ...’ Kim said, her voice rising as she aired her worst fears, trying desperately to hold back the tears. The officer saw her lip start to tremble and her chin wobble. Tears filled her eyes and began rolling down her cheeks. ‘Please find her, please,’ Kim begged, grabbing hold of Jackie’s hand and holding it tightly. ‘You don’t understand. You see, since her dad died, she’s all I’ve got. She knows how I fret.’ Matt put an arm around her shoulder and hugged Kim tightly.

‘Tell you what, why don’t I get you both a nice warm drink and I’ll try to contact PC Hughes to see if he’s got any news for us, eh?’ said Jackie kindly. PC May made the call, but it appeared that Kayleigh Harwood had vanished. Call it a police officer’s gut instinct, but something didn’t feel right to Jackie either. She bit her lip in thought before turning to Kim and Matt.

‘I think it’s about time we got hold of the Search and Rescue team,’ she told them. ‘In the meantime, I want you to check with everyone you know, to see if they have heard from her, okay?’

Kim nodded, glad at last that someone was taking her fears seriously, and that she had something to distract her over-active imagination.

‘I’ll contact you if I get any news and vice-versa, yes?’

Kim nodded again as she wiped her eyes.

PC May patted Kim’s hand comfortingly. ‘We’ll find her, I promise,’ she said.

Twenty four hours passed and there was still no news. Kim had been to the salon to see Marlene, and together she and Matt had rung all the telephone numbers in Kayleigh’s address book, but to no avail. A queasy feeling of dread engulfed Matt as he put down his phone on the kitchen table and his dark, deep set eyes met Kim’s. He rested his head on top of his folded arms, feeling dizzy and sick. Sweat poured from his brow and the gagging feeling in his throat was still there.