In Bitter Chill (4 page)

The ravenous hunger that had consumed Rachel since she was a child had, this evening, deserted her. Her stomach felt like it had a fist curled up inside, waiting to unfold and take her from within. The house was now icy cold. She tried to make the small terraced cottage as cosy as possible on winter evenings by lighting the fire in the living room to give an extra warmth to the cold stone. But this evening only the threat of hypothermia had led her to flick the switch of the central heating, which was now slowly catching against the cold.

She willed herself to stay calm. All that had happened was that Sophie’s mother was dead. This was no surprise, for surely Mrs Jenkins must now be in her sixties and while it wasn’t that old these days, it wasn’t exactly young either. Her own mother had died at the age of sixty-one, the bladder cancer slowly sapping her strength until she had faded into nothingness. But why was Mrs Jenkins dead in the Wilton Hotel? This was the mystery that was threatening to implode her calm facade. She had heard that Mrs Jenkins still lived in the house in Arkwright Lane. Number twenty-three. Rachel could still remember the two white iron numbers, set at a jaunty angle on the front of the bungalow that she had called at every morning on her way to school.

She picked up the phone and dialled the familiar number. ‘Nan? It’s Rachel. I was just checking to see if you’re all right.’

‘I’m playing patience. Can I call you back?’

‘Nan! You play patience by yourself. You can interrupt your own game for five minutes.’

Nancy sighed, and must have placed the pack of cards onto her table, for Rachel could sense the shift in focus to herself.

‘What’s wrong, dear?’

The direct question made Rachel recoil. ‘I had a shock today, that’s all. Yvonne Jenkins is dead. Remember? Sophie’s mum.’

There was a silence at the other end of the phone and for a moment Rachel thought she had lost the connection.

‘Mrs Jenkins. She’s dead? What of?’

‘I don’t know.’ For some reason, the thought of discussing with her grandmother the possible causes of Yvonne Jenkins’s death seemed monstrous.

But Nancy was back in the past. ‘She was a lovely woman, but nervy. Wouldn’t let Sophie out on the street to play. And it was more common then. It couldn’t have happened to a worse person – to lose a child, I mean. She never got over it.’

Rachel had to ask the question. ‘But would Mum have got over it if it was me who had never come back? She might have been the same.’

There was a silence at the other end of the phone. ‘Come on, Rachel. You did come back, didn’t you? Don’t go over this again.’

Again? They’d never been over it the first time. That was the problem. Rachel’s mother had moved out of Arkwright Lane and gone to Clowton in August 1978, seven months or so after the kidnapping. A new start, she had called it. Rachel had moved school, made new friends and the past had never been spoken of. The psychologist she had been sent to hadn’t wanted to talk about the case. He’d just wanted to hear about Rachel’s reactions to it. He’d tried to discuss her burgeoning weight. Rolls of fat were gathering around her waist and he’d gently suggested to her mother that they might think about going to Weight Watchers together. So off they had trotted and it was her mother who’d lost two stone, although Rachel had managed to shift the worst of it. Two years of counselling and all she’d got out of it was a slightly slimmer silhouette and a lifelong aversion to full-length mirrors.

After promising to visit her nan that Sunday as usual, Rachel hung up and retrieved her laptop from the table where she had left it in the early afternoon before her fragile world had started to unfurl. The BBC had nothing about the death, not even on the local pages, but the websites of some of the more salacious daily newspapers had started to pick up on the story. The first that Rachel clicked on resulted in her coming face-to-face with her eight-year-old self. The picture had become familiar over the years, although not as famous as that of Sophie, for whom there was no adult equivalent. It had been taken in the autumn of 1977 at St Paul’s primary school’s summer fete and showed her with that ubiquitous pageboy haircut of the era, smiling brightly into the camera. Her mother had been standing beside her, she remembered, but over the years it was the picture of Rachel only that had made it into the newspapers. She had won a big prize on the tombola and a local journalist, searching for a photo to use in that week’s events page, had snapped away, unaware that the resulting image would be reproduced for years to come to illustrate the danger facing young girls who got into the cars of strangers.

Someone had given the press a picture of Sophie dressed up for a party in a light purple sprigged dress with pristine white socks and black patent Mary-Jane shoes. She was smiling into the camera, her blonde hair parted into 
immaculate
 bunches. She’d owned a similar dress, Rachel remembered now; hers was a fern green, but with the same broderie anglaise border. At the bottom was a picture of Rachel taken a few years ago when some aspiring hack had decided to do a bit of digging into the old case. She squinted at the picture, she had been thinner then, probably a stone lighter, she reckoned.

After the shock of the photos, the text of the accompanying piece was reassuringly anodyne. No fresh news, just the announcement of the death of Mrs Jenkins. The headline of the piece read ‘Grieving mother’s suicide after thirty years’. Suicide? Rachel frowned. There had been nothing on the news about suicide. At least that explained what she was doing in the Wilton Hotel. But why would she commit suicide after all this time? If she had killed herself in 1978 that would have been understandable. But not now. She could remember Mrs Jenkins as a slightly nervous perfectionist who had been inclined to mollycoddle Sophie. The devastation at her daughter’s disappearance would surely have lasted a lifetime. But the timing was strange. Although she must have killed herself on the anniversary of their kidnapping, why wait all this time? Something wasn’t right.

In Sadler’s room, Connie and Palmer sat side by side. The office was pristine as usual, with little evidence of the detritus that usually accompanied investigations – files, photographs, reports. Connie slid her eyes sideways to Palmer. They were natural competitors for Sadler’s favours. When she had first arrived at Bampton, Connie had taken one look at Palmer and recognised a rival. He must have done the same because he had, from the start, referred to her by her first name and it had stuck. Everyone called her Connie, from the Super to the late night cleaner.

The main drawback for Connie was that he was astute. While she relied on intuition and instinct, he could spot the flaw in a theory and an untruth in a suspect’s testimony while she was still digesting the information. And although he treated her with respect and rarely pulled rank, she suspected that he wouldn’t hesitate to do so if it would earn Sadler’s approval. They were alike in their ambition. The difference, though, was that this was her home. Where she’d been brought up. For Palmer, the move was simply to be closer to his fiancée, 
Joanne.
And Connie was yet to be convinced how much emotional investment he had in Derbyshire.

Today, however, he wasn’t his usual self. His right knee was bouncing up and down in agitation or stress, perhaps both.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, glancing down at the jigging knee.

‘The matter? The matter is I’m getting married next month. Have you forgotten?’

It had slipped her mind. She knew it was sometime this year but had assumed it was a couple of months away, at least. Who the hell got married in winter? Perhaps his fiancée was pregnant. She tried a sympathetic look.

‘You got a lot to do? Tell Sadler, I’m sure he’ll cut you some slack if that’s the problem. This is an old case – nothing’s going to happen quickly, is it?’

He glanced down at her, knee momentarily stalled. ‘Well, yes, but that’s hardly the point. We’re having the reception at the Wilton. Joanne will have a fit when she hears about that dead woman.’

‘It was suicide. People kill themselves all the time. I don’t need to tell you that.’

‘She’ll have a fit anyway. Nothing is right for her at the moment.’

What was it with people, wondered Connie. A sixty-five-year-old woman commits suicide and now everyone was jumpy – Llewellyn, Sadler and now Palmer.

‘Tell Joanne that a woman killed herself in one of the bedrooms nowhere near the bridal suite. And make sure you don’t point out which room it was when you arrive at the hotel. Even if she asks.’

‘Easy enough for you to say.’

Stung, Connie turned to him. ‘And what’s all this about you asking Sadler if the place was haunted?’

Before Palmer could reply, the door to the office opened and Sadler walked in. He looked tired, his skin a pale grey.

‘OK, as I mentioned to you on the phone, Connie, Llewellyn’s asked me to look again at the investigation into the disappearance of Sophie Jenkins in 1978.’

Connie opened her mouth to speak, but Sadler cut across her.

‘I know what you’re going to say and you’re right. The matter should really be handed over to a cold-case team. However, given that things are quiet here at the moment, we’re getting first crack at it. The case is still officially open, although no personnel have been assigned since DC Brierly’s retirement in 2010.’

‘Brierly?’ said Connie. ‘Good God, that was the first leaving do I went to when I joined CID. And no one else has looked at the case since?’

Sadler leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s only been a few years. But you’re right; it is an oversight. Someone should have been assigned to keep a watching brief at least. But the fact that this was overlooked means that Llewellyn has the opportunity to appoint someone more senior than he would otherwise have done.
’

‘Because of the events of today?’ asked Palmer. ‘I mean, presumably now the press know the identity of Yvonne Jenkins they’ll be here in a flash.’

Sadler didn’t look happy. ‘The press are almost certainly going to be a distraction. But Yvonne Jenkins’s death gives us as good a reason as any to look at the case. There’s no fresh evidence that we can assess, but, on the other hand, until we have an official verdict from the coroner, we have the opportunity to pry in a manner that will become less appropriate when it’s officially ruled suicide.’

Connie looked down at her notepad, dispirited. Sadler clearly couldn’t wait for the official verdict. He didn’t want this case. ‘Where are all the files?’

‘I assume they
’re in the archive
, but there are a couple of things that I want to make clear to you before we start.’

Sadler was fiddling with his shirt cuffs. ‘First, the police in 1978 weren’t idiots. The detectives might have worn flares and tweed jackets, but they were professionals like us. They collected evidence, recorded it and made an assessment. Of course, we’ve read about incompetent investigations from that time, but Llewellyn tells me the CID then was OK. Straight. And I respect his judgement.’

It sounded defensive and Connie could keep quiet no longer. ‘The press were fairly critical about certain aspects of the investigation. The fact, for example, that no one bothered to seal off the crime scene until—’

Sadler made a dismissive gesture with his hands. ‘I’m not saying there weren’t mistakes, but let’s not try to project twenty-first-century protocol onto 1978 policing. All I’m saying is that, in Llewellyn’s opinion, the original investigation wasn’t fatally compromised in any way.’

Connie shrugged. ‘They must have missed something. The girl was never found.’

She could feel Sadler looking at her and she willed herself not to flush.

‘The point I’m making is that we don’t have the resources to reassess every piece of evidence in what I suspect are boxes and boxes of files. It’ll be just the three of us and I’m sure this case will drop down the list of priorities should something come up in the meantime.’

‘But I’ve asked the uniforms to bring over the chests that I found in Mrs Jenkins’s attic,’ Connie protested.

‘That’s fine. As I said to you on the phone, I’m interested to see what’s in them too. Take a look when you can – get someone to itemise what’s in them, at least.’

‘So what are we going to concentrate on?’ asked Palmer. ‘If you don’t want us to start from scratch.’

‘We’re going to take a strategic review of the case. What advances can modern policing bring to the investigation?’

‘What about forensics – DNA and so forth? They wouldn’t have had that in 1978.’ Connie could feel her irritation rising. What were they going to be working with?

‘No, but forensic tests are expensive and time consuming. We’ll only use them when we know where our focus is. I can’t use a scattergun approach to what we decide to test. We have limited resources. What we’re going to do is bring fresh eyes to this very complicated case.’ Sadler looked down at his tidy desk. ‘It was huge in 1978. Don’t underestimate what strains the original team were under.’

‘And what are we trying to achieve?’ Connie asked. ‘Do we really think we might be able to find out what happened to the girl after all this time?’

‘Superintendent Llewellyn is of the opinion that it is still possible to bring this case to a conclusion. I have to tell you that I’m not so sure we can. But we’re going to try. I promised him that.’

‘So,’ said Connie, ‘is someone going to give us an overview of the case if we can’t read the police files? Or are we relying on press reports?’

‘I didn’t say the files are completely out of bounds, Connie. We should, at least, find out where they are being held. But I suspect, given that it was the 1970s, that the paperwork will be overwhelming. Nothing will have been computerised. There’s just the three of us and it will seriously slow us down if we start poring through the old case reports. I want us to take a top-down approach. Assess what happened from a broad perspective first and, if some discrepancy comes up, great. We go back to the original files and try and work out what happened. But they don’t form the basis of our investigation.’

‘What about the team that worked on the case? They’re all retired, or dead. We’ve got no one here who can give us a feel for that original investigation.’

‘That’s not quite true. There’s one member of that original team left.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got an appointment with him in five minutes.’

Connie was surprised when Llewellyn stood up for them as they entered his office. This wasn’t the usual way of things. What generally happened was that they would knock and be called in and Llewellyn would carry on with what he was doing for the requisite few minutes, which showed to all concerned the hierarchy of things. Not for so long that you thought he was a complete tosser, but long enough to make it clear who was in charge. Today, Llewellyn stood to attention when they entered his room, the first sign that this case was going to be different from others she had worked on. He motioned them to sit in the three chairs in front of his desk but remained standing himself. He didn’t look exactly ill at ease; more, Connie thought, agonised.

‘It’s been a while since this case was headline news, but over the last thirty years it’s occasionally been resurrected by bored journalists and those with a salacious bent. This is about to change. According to our press officer, the online sites have already picked up the news and tomorrow I expect it to be all over the papers.’ Llewellyn glared at them. ‘I don’t want any of you reading those articles. Got it?’

Connie and Palmer nodded, although she noted that Sadler didn’t move.

‘The media liaison officer will be keeping an eye on the press. What I’m going to do is tell you the official version and that’s your starting point. No conjecture, no gossip. We did all that and it got us bloody nowhere. So we start again. And this time we do it the clever way. Strategically.’ Llewellyn glanced at Sadler and seemed irritated at his disconnection. ‘Strategically, that’s the word I want, isn’t it, Sadler?’

Sadler roused himself. ‘Yes, I think it is.’

Connie glanced curiously at her boss. Never mind the time that had elapsed; they were still talking about a missing eight-year-old. What was the matter with him?

Llewellyn gave Sadler a suspicious glance and carried on. ‘The facts as far as we were able to get were these. On the morning of January the twentieth 1978, a Friday, two Bampton schoolgirls from the same class, Rachel Jones and Sophie Jenkins, took their usual walk to school. Rachel would call for Sophie at her bungalow and then together they would walk up the hill to St Paul’s.’

‘The school’s still there,’ said Palmer. ‘It’s not far from my house.’

Llewellyn ignored him. ‘At the top of the road, a woman stopped the car and got the two girls to post a letter for her. From now on we’re relying on the evidence of Rachel Jones, who, as we know, was later found alive. This is problem number one. We have to rely on the testimony of a girl who by all accounts was understandably traumatised by events.’

‘Did anyone else see the car draw up?’ asked Connie.

Llewellyn shook his head. ‘You are going to see this problem time and time again. One witness. I’ll come back to Rachel. For the moment, let’s stay in 1978. The girls realised that there was something wrong immediately: the woman driving the car made a right turn at the top of the road. The school is in the opposite direction and it was clear that the woman never intended to drop them there.’

‘Did the girls try to get out?’ Palmer was becoming interested in the story.

‘Rachel says she did, although she thinks Sophie was just banging the window. She remembers being unable to open the doors. This was before the days of central locking, so we presume the doors must have been modified to allow access from outside but left the person unable to open the door once inside the car. Perhaps an early form of a child lock, although they certainly weren’t commonly used in cars then.’

‘Didn’t anyone notice two girls hammering on the windows?’ Connie began to jot down some notes. ‘The road must have been packed with people taking their kids to school.’

‘No one spotted anything. We think that the woman must have turned into a side road almost immediately to avoid detection. And don’t forget there was no CCTV in those days. Rachel couldn’t remember anything about the details of the journey. Just the frustration and rising panic of not being able to attract attention.’

‘Then what?’ asked Palmer. ‘The famous woods scene?’

Connie watched Llewellyn wince. Palmer muttered, ‘Sorry.’

‘I told you, you’re to forget everything you read. The famous woods scene in essence boils down to this. At some point, the car was driven into Truscott Woods where Rachel escaped. What happened to the girls in the intervening period, we have no idea. As you know, Rachel was found at around midday wandering along the main Bampton Road, about a hundred metres from the fields, in a dazed state.’

‘And there were no signs of abuse?’ said Connie. ‘I mean stuff that never got into the papers?’

‘None, thank God. No sexual or other physical abuse. It gave us hope for Sophie.’

‘But she was never found,’ said Sadler. ‘No trace whatsoever.’

‘No and the working theory became that Sophie may well have been the intended target and that Rachel was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Connie couldn’t understand how it was possible for a girl to be missing for so long. Palmer, as if suddenly aware that he had contributed little to the conversation, roused himself.

‘What about Rachel?’ he asked. ‘Do we interview her again? She may have remembered something over the intervening years.’

Llewellyn finally sat down in his chair. ‘I saw her at the Wilton Hotel yesterday afternoon. She was standing behind the police tape and I spoke to her briefly. I’m not sure if she remembered me. She seemed stunned by the news.’

‘She asked if Yvonne Jenkins had been killed.’ Sadler’s tone was neutral, but Connie’s ears pricked up at the statement. She looked towards Llewellyn.

‘Yvonne’s death would have had a big impact on her. Let’s not read too much into this for the moment. Unless, of course, the PM turns up something.’