On A Dark Sea (The DCI Dani Bevan Detective Novels Book 2) (2 page)

Chapter Three

D
CI Bevan’s ground floor flat was in the Scotstounhill area of north-west Glasgow. She kicked her court shoes off in the wide hallway and padded into the kitchen-diner at the rear of the property without switching on the lights. Dani sat at the solid wood table and gazed out into her small but secluded garden.

              It was mid-March and spring buds were attempting to break through the barren and spiky vegetation that currently dominated her plot. Despite this sign that winter was finally over, the temperature remained low. Dani hoped that wherever she was, Maisie Riddell had access to shelter and food.  

              The detective forced herself to get up, flick on the spotlights and enter the kitchen area. Dani prepared a simple meal which she ate at the breakfast bar separating the two halves of the room.

              Since the discovery that Maisie had packed a bag to take with her, Phil found out the girl had emptied her savings account three days previously. Andy Calder and two other members of the team were in the process of trawling through Maisie’s computer history, to see if there was a chance the girl was planning to abscond with somebody she’d met online. So far, there was no evidence of this. Maisie had barely used any of the usual social media sites.

              Andy Calder’s interviews with Maisie’s classmates didn’t throw up any obvious leads either. It seemed as if Georgie Boag was the girl’s only really close friend. Dani assumed that as Georgie was the headmistress’s daughter, Maisie hadn’t thought it prudent to share her plans with her. Bevan was now waiting for the CCTV footage from the St Enoch Centre and Buchanan Street to arrive so they could try and identify what Maisie Riddell did in town during the Wednesday afternoons that she played truant from Newton High School. Dani suspected this information would prove to be the key to the investigation.

              Bevan placed her empty plate in the dishwasher. She intended to do nothing else except collapse into bed. It was very difficult during the case of a missing child to switch your thoughts off at the end of the day. But she had to. An exhausted officer leading the inquiries would do nothing to help Fiona or Maisie Riddell. Nonetheless, the grainy image of the young girl’s face, with its mixture of anticipation and fear, caught on camera outside the school gate yesterday lunchtime, was still burned into her brain when she finally closed her eyes.

The following morning, Dani noticed the red light flickering on her answering machine. She furrowed her brow, thinking she must have slept so soundly that she’d never heard the phone in the hallway ringing last evening. Bevan pressed the button. The detective smiled at the sound of Bill Hutchison’s voice. Dani had met Bill and his wife on her last case and they became good friends. The couple very sadly lost their son in the same year that Dani’s mother had died. This shared grief seemed to have created a kind of bond between them.

              Once Bill had given a brief account of what he and Joy had been up to during a weekend they’d spent with their grandchildren, the man’s tone became more serious. He asked if she’d had chance yet to look into the case of a murdered fisherman in Stonehaven. Dani shook her head with frustration and strode into the kitchen to make breakfast, allowing Bill’s voice to fade into background noise. She really didn’t need any extra burdens being added to her already massive workload. Dani wanted her mind to be focussed solely on young Maisie. She owed the girl that much at least.

              But as Bevan drove her little hatchback towards the Pitt Street station, she couldn’t prevent her thoughts from straying to the words that Bill had spoken during their last encounter. He was convinced that the murder of a middle aged man in a boat shed in Stonehaven was the work of Richard Erskine, the person that Dani had brought to court on a multiple murder charge a few months ago and was acquitted. The guy had been clearly guilty, the forensic evidence was unequivocal, but the jury had somehow felt sympathy for him. Erskine claimed he’d killed only to protect his beloved grandmother’s secret, a woman who’d suffered the most terrible abuse as a child and had stabbed to death the man responsible.

              The Stonehaven murder appeared to match the fate of the last of Erskine’s victims in every detail. Both men were found in worksheds, their throats brutally cut and their bodies positioned carefully after death so that their hands lay palm up in their laps. Bill believed that Erskine had struck again, although there was no other obvious connection between him and the dead fisherman. Bevan had already alerted the senior investigating officer to the similarities in the two cases. She didn’t have the jurisdiction to interfere any further.

              Dani banished all thoughts of the Stonehaven case from her mind as she stepped out of the lift into the open-plan work area of the Serious Crime Unit. Bevan immediately called her officers over for a briefing. On a series of display boards and flip charts were arranged stills from the CCTV footage of Maisie Riddell at the gates of the school. Various photographs of the girl and her parents were pinned up around them. A timeline had been created of Maisie’s movements in the 24 hours leading up to her disappearance.

              DC Andy Calder was the first to provide his input. ‘We did find some footage of Maisie Riddell at the St Enoch Centre last Wednesday, Ma’am, but there was no sign of her yesterday. It seems she was doing exactly what Georgina Boag claimed. The girl was looking around the shops. At one stage, she bought a burger and fries. She sat on one of the benches by the escalator to eat it.’

              ‘Did she meet or talk to anyone else that you could see?’ Dani enquired.

              Andy shook his head. ‘But one thing did strike us. The girl wasn’t just window shopping. In the last of the images she appeared in, Maisie had a couple of carrier bags. They were from boutique shops rather than the big chains.’

              ‘So the stuff she’d bought wasn’t cheap,’ Dani supplied. ‘How much money did Maisie withdraw from her bank account, Phil?’

              ‘A couple of thousand, Ma’am.’

              A few whistles went up.

              ‘But Fiona told me that was all the savings she and her husband had put aside for their daughter over the years. When you think of it that way, it wasn’t really such a large amount. The bank told me that Charlie Riddell deposited fifty or a hundred pounds into Maisie’s account every so often but the girl herself had never accessed the money before this week.’

              ‘So if she had cash to buy clothing from boutiques in town, where was she keeping it?’ Dani glanced around the room. ‘And where was it coming from?’

              ‘Her mother says she didn’t have a part-time job,’ added DC Alice Mann. ‘Apparently, Maisie’s father didn’t like the idea of it. He wanted his daughter to focus on her studies.’

              ‘Maybe Charlie gave her money when she came to stay with him. He might have preferred to give cash to Maisie directly, rather than having to clear it with Fiona,’ Phil put in.

              ‘Well, we can ask him when he arrives later on today. Charlie Riddell’s flight is due to land at six. He’s staying at the Hotel Ecosse in Hillhead.’ Dani looked thoughtful. She ran a hand through her short, dark hair. ‘Maisie must have been feeling put out by her father’s new marriage and particularly by the arrival of a baby.’

              ‘If she was then the girl never showed it,’ Phil said decisively. ‘I spoke with Georgie again last night. She maintains that Maisie was perfectly contented and had no reason to be disaffected at home.’

              Dani turned to look at one of the photographs. To the DCI, Maisie’s watery-green eyes seemed to contain a terrible sadness. ‘Then the girl must have been confiding her feelings to somebody else. It doesn’t appear to have been anyone she hooked up with online, so we need to find out exactly where Maisie could have contacted this person or persons.’ She twisted back to address the group. ‘Because if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that Maisie Riddell did not organise this little flit alone.’

Chapter Four

B
evan was seated to the left of Charles Riddell. His ex-wife was on his right. The man appeared slightly dishevelled, especially compared to the women he was positioned between, both of whom had dressed carefully for this occasion.

              When a couple of minutes were given over for photographs, at the very start of the press conference, Maisie’s father flinched at the sudden assault of flashes, putting a hand up to shield his eyes. Dani wondered if he’d been drinking on the plane. It wasn’t a gesture she would have recommended he make. The man was going to look guilty and defensive on the front cover of every national newspaper the next morning.

              Bevan gave a succinct outline of the case before handing over to Fiona and Charles to present their appeal. She never coached a victim’s family before a press briefing. Their words had to appear natural and unforced. The British public could be a fickle bunch. Even if you’d lost a loved one in the most appalling circumstances, they weren’t averse to condemning you for the way you were handling it.  

              The Riddells did the job extremely well. Fiona was measured and calm, but very obviously devastated. Charles was clearly upset too, but he said all the right things. They both appealed directly to Maisie, promising to fix everything if she’d just come home. There wasn’t any animosity evident between the couple. When the journalists had piled out, Dani led them up to her office and ordered tea. She pulled the door closed gently.

              ‘Thank you for doing that Mr and Mrs Riddell. I know it isn’t easy, but the publicity a press conference generates can really help.’ Dani sat on a soft seat opposite the pair, who had taken the little sofa. The detective didn’t want there to be a desk between them.

              ‘Has anyone reported seeing Maisie since yesterday?
Someone
must have spotted her.’ Charles looked desperate. He was a handsome and well-built man in his late forties. His hair was thick and grey but his face remained surprisingly unlined.

              ‘It’s very early days, Mr Riddell. This evening’s appeal will certainly help. We have viewed a great deal of CCTV footage but Maisie does not seem to have left the city via the train or bus stations.’

              ‘But I thought the first 24 hours were crucial? How can it possibly be early days?’ Charles shifted about in his seat.

              ‘That is in the case of an abduction. The evidence does not suggest this is what happened to Maisie,’ Dani said kindly, silently cursing the inaccuracies of police procedure pedalled by television dramas.

              ‘The detectives are convinced that Maisie ran away,’ Fiona explained flatly. ‘She’d packed a bag and emptied her bank account.’

              Charles rubbed at his stubbly chin. ‘Why would she do that? Maisie was happy. She could have whatever she wanted from us. I’d never let her go without.’ The man appeared utterly bemused and lost.

              Dani turned to Fiona, who was wearing a smart black trouser suit and had pinned her light brown hair away from her face. ‘Did you know that Maisie had been sneaking out of school on Wednesday afternoons? She’d been truanting from Games and taking the bus into town. It appears she spent her time wandering around the shopping centres.’

              Before the woman had a chance to reply, Charles butted in, ‘
what
? How is that possible? The school is supposed to be secure during the day. Whenever I’ve been to the place it’s locked up like Fort Knox.’

              ‘According to one of your daughter’s friends, Maisie knew the times when the gates were likely to be open. She slipped out then,’ Bevan clarified.

              ‘I didn’t realise she was doing that,’ Fiona said quietly. ‘But in a way, I’m not surprised. Maisie did want to have more freedom. There were several classes that she didn’t feel it was necessary for her to have to attend anymore. I told Maisie it would get better when she was studying the subjects she’d chosen.’

              ‘How could you not have known she wasn’t in school?’ Charles demanded.

              Fiona sighed. ‘Maisie is nearly fifteen. She isn’t the little girl she was when you left us.’

              The man’s face flushed red. ‘I did
not
leave you. It was
your
decision to stay behind when I went to Norway.’

              Fiona rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. ‘And that’s been your get out of jail free card for everything that’s happened since. I suppose it never occurred to you not to take the job?’

              Dani cleared her throat, sensing this discussion was getting them nowhere. ‘Did Maisie have a group of friends outside of school who she met up with? The evidence we have gathered so far creates the impression that she didn’t plan to leave home by herself.’

              Fiona thought carefully about this. ‘To be honest, Maisie didn’t have many friends. There’s the group of girls at school you’ve already spoken with and the boy that lives next door to us who she occasionally chats to. Apart from my sister’s kids, that’s about it. Maisie is a very quiet, reserved sort of girl. That is why I find the thought of her having run away so difficult to comprehend.’

              ‘What kind of shambolic operation is Jane Boag running, that she can’t keep our daughter safe during the school day?’ Charles Riddell was still red in the face and beads of sweat had broken out on his brow.

              ‘She has over a thousand students on the premises,’ Fiona muttered under her breath.

              Dani leant forward and poured more tea. ‘Have another drink, Mr Riddell. I’ll put an extra sugar lump in. It will help.’

              Charles put out a shaky hand and lifted the cup to his lips. Bevan noticed that tears were trickling down his cheeks. ‘I thought she’d be okay here with her mother. It wasn’t an easy choice to leave Maisie, you need to understand that. If I’d known something like this would happen then of course I’d never have taken the damned job.’ The man started to sob.

              Dani was surprised to see Fiona immediately turn towards her ex-husband and slip her arms tightly around him, burying her face in his shoulder.

              ‘It’s not possible to guarantee they’ll always be safe, Mr Riddell. All we can do now is to focus our attention on making sure that we find her.’

After seeing the couple out of the building, Dani discovered Andy Calder waiting outside her office.

              ‘I’ve had a thought, Ma’am.’

              Dani gestured for him to follow her inside.

              ‘What is it?’

              ‘Well, I know that Fiona Riddell is a good friend of Phil’s and everything, but I think we still need to keep her in the frame.’

              ‘In what sense?’ Dani was intrigued.

              ‘Mrs Riddell looked really surprised when we discovered Maisie’s stuff was missing from her bedroom. But there was something about her reaction that struck me at the time as odd. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was; she just didn’t seem as shocked as she might be. Then I was watching her at the press conference. Maisie’s dad was a mess, but Fiona was just so incredibly cool.’

              Dani appeared thoughtful. ‘You suspect that Fiona Riddell may have packed that bag herself and then got rid of it. To make it appear as if her daughter had run away. Maisie
was
carrying two bags in the CCTV footage of her leaving the school.’

              ‘Yes, but we only got a good view of the rucksack. The other bag wasn’t clearly visible. It could have been a plastic carrier for all we know. Fiona Riddell had the whole of last night to cover her tracks - if she did do something to harm her daughter, that is.’

              ‘Okay.’ Dani sat behind her desk. ‘Can you find out what Fiona’s movements were yesterday morning and afternoon?’

              Andy nodded, turning to leave.

              ‘Oh, and keep your enquiries as discreet as possible.’

              ‘Don’t worry, Ma’am. I intend to.’