Hushabye Page 4

  The traffic was heavy on the drive back to the station, and the car was stationary for minutes at a time. Kate found the silence between her and Anderton awkward, although she hoped that feeling wasn’t mutual. She struggled to think of an appropriate topic of conversation, either case-related or small-talk line. She opened her mouth and shut it again. Anderton glanced over.

  “We’ve thrown you in at the deep end with this one, DS Redman, haven’t we?”

  Kate smiled, a little uncomfortably. What happened to “Kate?”

  “I’ve never worked a child abduction case before, sir, that’s true.”

  “Always hard,” said Anderton. “You never get used to the kid cases. Never.” He indicated to turn right. “I’ve got three myself and you always find yourself thinking, well, what if it was one of mine?”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “You don’t have any kids yourself?”

  Kate looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “No. No, I don’t.”

  “Still hard,” said Anderton, briefly. The police station car park gates were opening for them. Anderton swung the car into an empty bay.

  Olbeck was shepherding a middle-aged couple through the foyer of the station as they came into the building. The couple looked bludgeoned, stunned into silence; the woman clutched her husband’s arm as if it were the only thing keeping her from collapse. Kate and Anderton stood back, letting Olbeck steer the murdered girl’s parents out towards his car, on their sad journey to view the mortal remains of their only daughter. Kate felt the first welcome surge of anger towards the perpetrator, the first real pulse of rage at whoever had done this; they had wrecked lives and shattered dreams for whatever selfish reason of their own.

  They were approaching the front desk when Anderton was intercepted by a uniformed officer, who drew him aside and muttered something in his ear. Kate watched as Anderton raised his eyebrows. He looked over at her a second later and jerked his head to the right.

  “Developments?” asked Kate, as they made their way down the corridor to the interview rooms.

  “Certainly.” Anderton stood back courteously, holding a door open for her. “We have a witness, apparently. Someone who saw something on the night of the abduction.”

  “Who is it?”

  “A local wino, apparently. What makes it interesting, though,” Anderton stood back again to let Kate go first and this time she felt a spasm of irritation. Just get on with it. “Our witness was once accused of sexual assault. No conviction, to be fair.”

  “And?” said Kate, stampeding ahead of him through the last doorway.

  “The accusation was that he sexually assaulted an eighteen-month-old baby boy.”

  Kate stopped the door from swinging back into her superior’s face. “Are you saying – what are you saying? Is he a suspect?”

  “I don’t know. All I’m saying is that we need to hear what he’s got to say. It’s probably nothing – but then again, it could be an extremely effective smokescreen.”

  They had reached the interview room. Kate reached out and lifted the flap that covered the peep-hole in the door. She could see the edge of the table, a leg clad in dirty denim, the edge of a filthy leather jacket.

  “Why would someone like that draw attention to themselves?” she murmured, almost to herself.

  “Good question.”

  Anderton put a hand on her arm and gently pushed her out of the way, opening the door. Kate felt herself beginning to blush. She forced the heat down by an extreme effort of will and entered the room with a face she felt was as blank as she could make it.

  “For the tape, this is Detective Inspector Anderton interviewing Nicholas Draker, at two forty-nine pm, Monday sixteenth January 20--. Detective Sergeant Kate Redman is also present.”

  Nicholas Draker was younger than Kate had anticipated. He didn’t look much more than forty-five, which, given his homelessness and general air of squalor, meant he was probably no more than thirty. He had a rounded face, long fair eyelashes and an upturned, piggish nose, all of which jarred with the greasy dark hair falling over his high forehead and the heavy stubble darkening his chin.

  “So you admit to being on the grounds of Mr Fullman’s estate on the night of Saturday the fourteenth of January, Mr Draker?”

  “Yeah, I was there. I needed a place to kip.”

  “So in fact you were trespassing on Mr Fullman’s land?”

  Draker scoffed. “You can call it that if you want. Weren’t doing any harm, was I?”

  “Weren’t you, Mr Draker? That remains to be seen.” Anderton leant forward in his chair. “The Fullmans’ baby son is missing, as well you know. A young woman has been killed. Did you have anything to do with these two events?”

  “Course I fucking didn’t.”

  “But you admit to being on the scene on the night of the crime?”

  “I just said so, didn’t I? Didn’t mean that I had anything to do with it. I was there a week before all this happened and the night after it too. That’s where I stay at the moment, or at least I did until you bastards moved me off. Where’m I going to go now?” No one answered him. “Look, I’m helping you out. I didn’t need to say anything, did I? Fact is, I saw someone, like I told your man out there when they brought me in.”

  Anderton leant forward again.

  “So what did you see, Mr Draker?”

  “A man in a hood. Black hoody-type thing. He was walking towards the house.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “Nope. He was kind of side on, his back to me, you know.”

  “This was on Saturday night? What time exactly?”

  “I dunno, exactly. Don’t have a watch. But it was late, midnight or thereabouts.” Draker put his hand up to his stubbled jaw and rubbed it. “He was moving kind of – dunno, kind of carefully. Watching where he put his feet, you know. That’s kind of what drew my eye.”

  Anderton was silent for a moment and Kate took the opportunity.“It was dark, Mr Draker. How could you see this man?”

  Draker gave her a look of outrage.

  “You saying you don’t believe me?”

  “Not at all. I just wanted to get the full picture. How clearly could you see this man?”

  “Clear enough,” said Draker, sulkily. “Look, when you live rough, you get used to the dark. I can see in the dark much better’n you can, you know? I’m telling you, I saw a man, a bloke in a black hoody, that night. He was walking towards the house, looked like he knew exactly where he was going.”

  He blew out his cheeks. “Fucking coppers. Why am I doing your job for you?”

  “Yes, thank you, Mr Draker,” said Anderton, not sounding upset in the slightest. He looked down at the file on the table as if checking a fact. “You have a police record yourself, don’t you? The fact is that you yourself have been accused of the sexual assault of a child.”

  If they had expected Draker to look ashamed, or shocked, they were disappointed. He scoffed, sitting back in his chair and rolling his eyes.

  “That was the ex-missus, that was, stirring up shit for me. There weren’t no conviction, was there? It was nothing. It was that bitch trying to make trouble for me. If you think I’ve got anything to do with what happened to the baby that night, you’re dead wrong, right?”

  *

  “Charming character,” said Kate afterwards, back in the office. “Do we believe him?”

  Anderton was prowling before the whiteboards again. He stood before the picture of Dita Olgweisch spread-eagled out on the nursery carpet.

  “Probably,” he said. “I think his offence record is something of a red herring. Just because he was once accused of the abuse of a toddler doesn’t mean he suddenly decided one day to bypass all the security, get past the CCTV, break into a stranger’s house, kill the nanny and abduct a pretty much newborn baby. No, if there was an intruder, then it’s someone who knew what they were doing, who knew the house.”

  Kate noted the emphasis. “If,” she sai
d, carefully.

  Anderton glanced at her. “If,” he confirmed.

  Kate hesitated. “So, do we believe that Draker saw someone in the woods on the night of the crime?”

  Anderton resumed his pacing. “Again, probably,” he said. “He most probably did see someone. Was it someone intent on the crime, though? Could have been a poacher.”

  Kate raised her eyebrows. “Do we still get poachers, sir?”

  Anderton shot her a quick glance.

  “This is the country, DS Redman. Perhaps it was a dogger.” Kate tried not to smile. Anderton went on. “Could have been another tramp. Perhaps Draker even imagined it or conjured it out of a meths bottle.”

  Kate swung her office chair back and forth, tapping a pen on the edge of the desk.

  “Sir,” she said eventually. “I’d like to interview Casey Fullman again. And Gemma Phillips as well. Particularly Gemma. I think there’s something…” She hesitated, unsure of what to she was trying to say. “I’m not sure but I think there may be something she’s not telling us.”

  “Good. Get onto it. We need to see them – the Fullmans – anyway. Always important to support the parents in a case like this until we – well, until we know more.”

  “I’ll go first thing tomorrow.”

  Olbeck returned from his visit to the coroner’s office looking tired. He stopped by Kate’s desk and perched himself on the corner of it.

  “You knocking off soon?” he asked.

  Kate nodded her affirmative.

  “Fancy a drink?”

  Kate blinked. She considered refusing as politely as possible – it was late, she was tired and she barely knew him – but after a second’s consideration decided that she may as well. The last thing she wanted to do was start to foster a reputation of being completely standoffish and unfriendly with her new colleagues.

  They walked a few streets to the “coppers’ pub.” Kate knew there was one near every station – the quietest, least conspicuous place where you could sink copious amounts of alcohol was where you were going to find the off duty men and women trying to rejoin the real world after their shift. This pub – The Queen’s Head, how anonymous – was exactly that: sticky carpet, a few old men at the bar, some battered leather booths and no background music.

  “Good God, is that all you want?” said Olbeck, when she asked for an orange juice and lemonade.

  Kate half smiled. She wasn’t going to explain that after a lifetime of watching her mother hop on and off the wagon, the appeal of alcohol had long since receded.

  “I’m thirsty,” she said, which would do as a sort of half-truth. They took their drinks to one of the booths.

  “God, what a day,” said Olbeck. He slugged half his pint down in one go.

  “How did it go with the Olgweischs?”

  “About as well as you can imagine.”

  Kate grimaced.

  “Dita did have a boyfriend,” Olbeck continued. “He’s been out of the country for the last couple of days. Bit of a shock for him when he came back, poor bastard. Anyway, he’s coming in tomorrow.”

  His phone, which he’d left on the table next to his pint glass, started to vibrate. They both regarded it for a second.

  “Don’t you need to answer that?” said Kate, after a few moments.

  Olbeck shook his head. “It’ll keep. Anyway, how are you finding it? Everyone said hello yet?”

  “Yes, not that I can remember any of their names, unfortunately.”

  “Theo is the handsome one, Jane’s the redhead, Jerry’s the old one and Rav is the whippersnapper.” Olbeck grinned. “Does that help you?”

  Kate pretended to write in her notebook. “Immensely, thanks.”

  She got them another drink. “What’s Anderton like to work for?” she asked, sitting back down again.

  Olbeck took a sip of his pint. She got the impression he was picking the words of his answer carefully. Was that because of loyalty – or something else?

  “He’s steady,” he said eventually. “Once he’s got your back, he’s got it for life, so to speak. But he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He’s got his own way of doing things, and it doesn’t always go down too well with the high-ups.” Kate nodded. Olbeck continued. “He can be…what’s the right word? Hard. Ruthless, maybe. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of him.”

  Olbeck’s phone rang again. With a suppressed sigh, he picked it up. Kate got the impression that this was something of a recurring argument.

  “No, I won’t be late. It’s just a quick drink.” A pause. “With our new DS. Yes, I will. Yes. No, I won’t.” Kate caught his eye and he mimed a throat-cutting gesture with one hand. “No, I won’t. Yes, all right. Sounds good. See you soon.”

  He cut off the call and placed the phone back on the table.

  “Trouble?” said Kate.

  “Just my other half.” He didn’t volunteer any more details.

  “Do you need to go?”

  “Yes, but I’m not going to. Have another drink?”

  Kate didn’t want to be the cause of any domestic strife. Besides, she had stuff to do and honour had been served with two drinks. She shook her head, trying to sound regretful.

  “I’ll pick you up in the morning,” said Olbeck. “We’re going back to the Fullmans’ place with Anderton.”

  “Thanks for the drink.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Chapter Five

  There was a small crowd outside the gates of the Fullmans’ house when the officers arrived back the next morning. Kate thought they were curious onlookers until she spotted the cameras. Clearly the story had broken, and now the paparazzi were staking out the house, hoping to get a glimpse of the distraught parents.

  “Vultures,” said Olbeck, echoing Kate’s thoughts. As they drove carefully through the gates, a fusillade of flashes went off. Kate turned her head away from the window. How anyone would want to be famous and actually seek out this kind of crap was a total and utter mystery. Inevitably, her thoughts turned to Casey. How was she coping?

  As they drew up outside the house, she caught a glimpse of movement in one of the front rooms, the one they’d interviewed Nick Fullman in yesterday. She watched as Anderton parked the car. It was Nick with his arms wrapped around this wife, his dark head bent down to her blonde one. He seemed to be rocking her back and forth. Kate frowned. There was nothing more natural than a man in his situation comforting his wife but...well, she’d got the impression yesterday that he was not an affectionate man, not one to be patient and loving and kind. Perhaps she was wrong. She hoped she was.

  Her first glimpse of Casey up close almost shocked her. The woman’s skin was grey, her pupils huge and dilated. Her long hair hung in matted clumps. What was worse was her look of desperate hope.

  “You’ve found him?” she gasped as the officers came into the hallway. She sagged as Anderton began to explain that they hadn’t, that he was so sorry. Nick Fullman caught her and picked her up bodily.

  “I’ll take her into the bedroom,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away with Casey sobbing in his arms. “Go into the kitchen and I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  There was an older woman already in the kitchen, sat at the table with a steaming mug in front of her, flipping though a magazine. She was so like Casey, so much an older, more brittle copy of her daughter that Anderton didn’t even bother to ask. He merely said, “You must be Casey’s mother,” and introduced himself and his team.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Sheila Bright, shaking hands with them all with a vigour that belied her tiny frame. She wasn’t as old as Kate had thought – either that, or she’d had plastic surgery. Probably the latter, thought Kate. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Then she castigated herself for being a bitch. What did it matter anyway?

  Gemma Phillips was also there, typing furiously into a laptop at the other end of the table. She was fully made up, dressed today in a light grey suit. Plain or not, she had an excellent fig
ure, and it was clearly on show in her tight pencil skirt and fitted jacket. Kate frowned. There was something inappropriate about her dress, given the circumstances. But perhaps it was the only kind of wardrobe she had.

  Nick Fullman had come back into the kitchen. He took a kitchen chair and swung it backwards, straddling it. There was something about the gesture that was a little familiar, and it took Kate only a few moments to realise that she’d seen Anderton do the same in the staff room just yesterday. Fullman had the same quality of dynamism, a palpable energy that seemed to radiate from him. Gemma Phillips was watching him intently. She fancies him, thought Kate, and knew she was right. She must talk to her again; it could be important.

  Anderton was talking.

  “Mr Fullman, we’re doing all we can to find your son. I know we’ve ascertained that Charlie didn’t have a passport, but we’ve still alerted all of the airports and ports. We’ve interviewed the neighbours to see if they can give us any information that might be helpful.”

  “And have they?”

  “We’re still going through their statements at this time but I have to say that nothing has particularly stuck out as suspicious.” Kate wondered whether he would mention Nicholas Draker and what he had or hadn’t seen. Anderton didn’t. “Is there anything else that you might be able to tell us that might be pertinent to this enquiry?”

  Nick Fullman frowned. “No. I don’t think so.”

  Anderton changed tack.

  “The other thing we’re coming up against, sir, is the fact that none of the alarms on your property were activated last night.”

  Fullman blinked, as if this had only just occurred to him.

  “They weren’t?” He seemed to recollect himself. “No, of course they weren’t. My God, I hadn’t realised, I didn’t think of it.”

  “Do you change the codes for the alarms often? How many alarms are there?”

  Nick got up from his chair.

  “There’s only two alarms. One for the garage, one for the house.”

  “Do you change the codes often?”

  Fullman looked a bit sheepish. “No, I don’t think I’ve ever changed them. It’s the same code for both.”