The Faceless (6 page)

The food came. They ate their soup in silence, started talking again as they started work on the mains.

“So what about the other misper?”

“Dave McAdams can tell you more than me, but he’s off-shift till tomorrow.”

“What
do
you know?”

“Asian lass. Name escapes me. Seventeen. Vanished off High Street.”

“Someone snatched her off
this
High Street?”

“Yup. Broad daylight.” Stakowski nodded at the mist beyond the windows. “Well, not so broad. Been like this all week. Makes it a lot easier.”

“Even so. You don’t snatch someone like that on the spur of the moment.”

“Spare rib?”

“Just the one. Watching my figure.”

“Watch it for you if you–”

“Don’t even
think
about finishing that sentence.”

“Ma’am.” Stakowski took another rib.

“So? What happened with this girl?”

“Like I said, you should talk to Dave–”

“–and I will...”

“But... someone heard a scream, just found but the girl’s handbag. Nowt taken – driving licence, bank card, money all still there.”

“But she’d vanished.”

“Thin air. Broad daylight. No trace.”

“Just like Roseanne Trevor.”

“Just like.”

“So there’s either two sets of kidnappers–”

“–pretty long odds round here–”

“–or one group. Who on the one hand snatch a toddler, on the other a pretty well-developed teenager. There was a paedophile ring in Kempforth some years back, wasn’t there?”

“Allegedly.
Long
way back. ’Bout ’85, if I remember right. Before you were born.”

“Piss off. But that was pretty well-organised, wasn’t it?”

“Mid 80s? Before my time. But I heard something of it. Don’t think they ever nailed the buggers, but I doubt any of them’d still be around either. Could always talk to the Bedstead.”

“Eh?”

“Well, I think he was a DS at the time. Might have heard something.”

“Leave that one well alone for now. Might as well just print a t-shirt saying
I’m Clutching At Straws
.”

“Your call, boss. So, how do you want to play it?”

“I want to talk to McAdams first thing tomorrow before I make a final decision.”

“But?”

“For now, a single investigation. You head up the Trevor case, McAdams stays on the missing teenager. Pool information, see what we get.”

“And the Spindly Men?”

“Make your trip to the library and we’ll see.”

“’Kay.”

“Anything else?”

“Just remember to watch your back on this one, boss. That’s all.”

“You’re watching it for me. Remember?”

“Oh aye.”

THE TESTAMENT OF PRIVATE WOLFIE JACOBS CONCLUDED pulverising both testicles and the worst of it my cullies the big bastard laugh was that we fell back from the trench with not even that poor gain to show for the loss of my manhood whose tattered remnants were left to rot in germanic earth or earth held by the german bastards anyway oh i hated them and why should i not had i not good cause but not as much as i hated the pity and the horror and the disgust on the faces of the nurses and the vads who changed my dressings and saw and saw and saw for oh women had uncovered my nakedness before but with very different expressions before my tool stabbed them and now i dreamt of stabbing with other implements implements made of metal or wood but i did not do so give me credit brave boys i did not but endured the smart of pity and revulsion and a more sickish brew than that there never was for eleven years before at last weighting my pockets with stones and wading the waters of old father thames one last time in search of peace perfect peace but finding it not brave boys finding it not for the quality of peace is not rare but indeed non existent it abideth nowhere nowhere at all

R
ENWICK SHUT THE
door of her third-floor flat behind her just after ten pm, weary to her bones, and dropped her suitcase in the lounge.

She wanted a shower, but not because of dirt or sweat.
Baldwin
. She felt greasy at the thought of him. But too tired. An excuse not to ring Dad, anyway. Tonight at least.
Tomorrow is another day
. She made her way to the bedroom, shucking off suit jacket, blouse, unfastening her belt.

Nick had left the wardrobe doors open, showing all the gaps where his clothes had been.

Renwick kicked away shoes, trousers. Peeling her socks off felt like too much effort, so she kept them on as she pitched onto the bed. She groped for the alarm clock, held it to her bleary face and set the time. “Think I’ll become a nun,” she muttered, and slept.

CHAPTER FIVE

Friday 20
^th
December
.

T
HE MEETING ROOM
at Mafeking Road. Scraggy ropes of tinsel hung glittering from the ceiling.
Merry bloody Christmas
. Renwick, Stakowski and McAdams – a fortyish Detective Sergeant with thinning ginger hair – facing a dozen journos: the
Kempforth Chronicle
, local rags from neighbouring towns, even – the big time – the
Manchester Evening News
and
North-West Tonight
. Cameras flashed. Renwick breathed deep; she’d only had ten minutes to talk to McAdams about the other missing person.

“Tahira Khalid, aged seventeen, from the All Saints district of Kempforth.” A photograph; a soft-faced girl with wire-rimmed glasses, shyly smiling. “Last seen Monday afternoon, Kempforth High Street. A scream was heard around the time she was last seen. A handbag identified as Tahira’s was found near the War Memorial.”

“Are the two cases being treated as connected, Chief Inspector?”

“Could this be an honour killing?”

“Is a paedophile ring operating in Kempforth?”

“There’s no hard evidence either way at this point; we’ve two separate investigations that will share information. There’s no indication of that. There’s no evidence to support that view either.”

“Then with respect, Chief Inspector, what information
do
you have?”

“We have leads we are investigating. When we’ve got information to share with you, we will share it. Any further questions? Thank you.”

T
HE SQUAD ROOM,
and Renwick viewed the rest of her team: four Detective Constables, all the flu outbreak and the usual pre-Christmas crime rise had left available.

“So... Tahira Khalid. What do we know?”

McAdams coughed. “She were working part-time as a shop assistant, doing a Theatre Studies A-level at Kempforth College before it burnt down.” A moment’s silence. Nearly all of them had seen the charred remains, mostly unidentifiable, carried from the college’s ruins. At least it’d happened at night; by day it’d have been ten times worse. “Went to Primrose Hill Secondary School after work most days, where they’ve been holding some of the college classes. Work colleagues were fairly non-committal about her.”

“Non-committal?”

“Nowt to say against her, but nowt particularly for her either. Fades into the background sort of thing. Nice enough lass, good worker, but distant, away with the fairies.”

“Any boyfriends?” asked Tranter, the youngest – early twenties – of the detectives, in a smart suit a size too big. Pale grey eyes, dark frizzy hair; a receding chin and a prominent nose.

“Gonna ask her out if we find her?” smirked Janson. Renwick winced – Janson’s volume always seemed to be set two notches too high. One of Renwick’s few female colleagues in Kempforth CID, God help her.

“Sue,” said Renwick.

“Sorry mum.” Janson blinked. Her eyes were small and too close-set; what little bone structure her face had was lost in pale, doughy flab.

“Go on, Colin.” Tranter was painfully earnest – downright humourless at times – but capable.

He flushed. “I was thinking exes, maybe. Rejected suitors.”

“That occurred to me,” McAdams said. “So I asked DC Crosbie to speak to the family.”

“Shot down,” Janson cat-called. Tranter went redder.

“This isn’t the playground, Janson,” McAdams said.

“Sarge.”

“Alastair?”

About Renwick’s age, but dressed ten or twenty years older, Crosbie wore grimy spectacles and an old suit jacket with dandruff on the shoulders. “She was seeing a laddie called Usman Khan, but he dumped her a fortnight after starting Uni. Nae-one since.”

“What about the family itself?”

“Parents, grandmother, four brothers, two sisters – all crammed into one semi-detached house, Christ knows how. Plus an older sister, married and moved out.”

“Any problems at home, that we know of?”

“None we could discover,” Crosbie said. “Spoke to DS Ashraf over at the Dunwich – he came in, helped translate. The granny didnae have great English.”

“They only do when it bloody suits them.”

“Something to share, Janson?”

“No mum.”

“Good. Alastair...?”

“There’d been talk of marriage.”

“Arranged?”

“Aye.”

“And was she happy with that?”

“She wasnae bothered. That’s what they all said. Whole family, even the kid sisters. All said the same. Lad she’d been seeing had upped and left her. Seems she thought an arranged marriage might be less painful – bit less chancy.”

“Not bein’ funny, mum, but they’re not gonna just come out and say it, are they? Course they’re gonna say she were up for it.”

“Some girls do enter into arranged marriages of their own volition, Janson,” Renwick said. Not that Janson was necessarily wrong, but how she’d crow if she were right. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

“Yeah, but–”

“Yes?”

Janson shifted her bulk in her chair. “Just saying, can’t just take their word for it, can we?”

“Which is why,” said McAdams, “we interviewed both neighbours and Tahira’s friends.” He glanced up at Janson. “Some of whom were actually white. All said the same thing. She weren’t bothered. Took things as they came. Away with the fairies. Lived in a world of her own.”

“Any suspicious persons reported round the time she went missing?” asked DC Wayland, who’d arranged himself into a casual slouch most likely copied from a cop film. He was actually good at his job when he wasn’t posing.

“Nothing.”

“Any other questions? OK. Mike?”

Stakowski relayed much the same information he’d given her the night before. He was thorough, as always; if he’d left it out of the report, it hadn’t been there to begin with. No questions afterward, not even from Tranter, and no gobbing off from Janson; toddlers didn’t run away from home.

“OK, then,” Renwick said. “DS Stakowski will handle the Roseanne Trevor case – DS McAdams, Tahira Khalid. Janson, you’re with Dave – Tranter, Wayland, you’re with Mike. We’ll be running them both in tandem out of here.” She hated the idea of Janson going near the Khalid case, but better there than Roseanne Trevor. And she knew she’d put her best two officers on the Trevor case. She should be trying to weight both investigations equally. Could she live with it if they found Tahira Khalid dead? She didn’t know, but she
couldn’t
live with finding Roseanne Trevor that way.

“What about me, boss?”

“Hadn’t forgotten you, Crosbie. We’re short on bodies, so we’ll all be out in the field a lot – Mike, Dave and myself included. We need a point of contact here in the office. That’s you.”

“Nae hassle, ma’am. Fine by me.”

Wayland grinned. “Trust you to get the cushy detail, you Jock git.”

Crosbie flicked a ball of paper at him. “You hear that, ma’am? Outright racial abuse, that is. Ah should make a formal complaint.”

“So should I,” called Wayland. “You all saw him cob that at me. That’s assault, that is.”

“You hurt ma tender feelings, ye bloody Sassenach.”

“Alright, children, settle down.” Even McAdams couldn’t keep a straight face.

Stakowski chuckled. “Kids, eh? Who’d have ’em?”

“They grow up so fast,” said McAdams. “It’s when they become teenagers you’ve got to worry.”

“One more thing.” Renwick took a deep breath. “You’ve all heard, I’m guessing, about these so-called Spindly Men.”

“Kids pratting around,” Janson mumbled.

“Maybe, maybe not. They showed up around the same time people started vanishing. Stupid not to check. So – Crosbie, collate any reports pertaining to them. See if anything jumps out. Rest of you, report any other sightings or reports you come across to DC Crosbie. Questions?”

Janson, predictably. “With respect, mum, there’s no evidence even the two cases are connected. Most likely is that the Paki girl–”

“
Janson!
”

“Al
right
, the
Asian
girl, Khalid – that her family did something to her. That or she did a bunk, slung her bag to throw us off. We should be focusing on the Trevor girl. And the Spindlies... come on, that’s just–”

Someone tapped on the incident room door. “Come.”

“Sorry, boss.” Joyce Graham, the desk sergeant, stuck her head round the door: tubby and thirtyish with two teenage sons, but handier than she looked if pepper spray and truncheon were required. “Dave?”

McAdams rose. “Yeah?”

“Call from DS Ashraf, out on the Dunwich. He said to let you know there’s been another disappearance, over at the Trinity. Macy Court. Two folk together this time.” Graham hesitated. “And one dead.”

“Christ,” said Stakowski. “They just graduated.”

Renwick flicked the last of her coffee into the bin. “You all know what to do. Dave, get the Khalid case rolling. Mike, get your team to work. Then you’re with me.”

CHAPTER SIX

T
HE
D
UNWICH WAS
near the edge of town, like the weird kid no-one wanted to be near. A concrete bin smashed by hammers; a metal one blackened by fire. Beyond squat low-rises and flat-fronted houses in dull grey pebbledash, Renwick glimpsed far-off craggy hills veiled in mist. Hoodies with muffled faces watched them pass. At the estate’s black heart stood three tower-blocks: the Trinity. Among them, Macy Court.