The Mushroom Man (3 page)

‘I’ve given the sergeant the names of Georgina’s friends.’ he said.

‘Fair enough, but you might have forgotten a few.’

I wrote:

I was racking my brain for further inspiration when Paul Scott, the Scenes of Crime Officer, popped his head round the door.

‘Excuse me, Mr Priest. When you get a minute can I borrow Mr Dewhurst, please?’

‘Sure’ I gave Dewhurst the list and gestured for him to go with the SOCO. I walked outside to my car and rang the Superintendent. The clock on the dashboard said ten to eight.

‘Hi, Gilbert’ I sighed wearily, when he answered. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but I think we’ve a heavy one.’ I filled him in on the details. While we were
talking another squad car and a SOCO van pulled up. Gilbert agreed to arrange for further reinforcements. The idea was that tonight, what was left of it, we’d hit everyone we could think of with photographs of the girl. In the morning we’d cover the bus station. She had to be somewhere, and somebody knew where that was.

‘Gilbert?’ I asked, hesitantly, when we’d finished. ‘Could you do me a little favour, please?’

‘Of course, what is it?’

‘I’m supposed to be at Annabelle’s at eight. Give her a ring and tell her I’m busy. It’ll sound better coming from you.’

He agreed. If the truth were known, Superintendent Gilbert Wood is just as ga-ga about her as I am. Fortunately, he’s happily married.

When I went back inside, the SOCO was taking Dewhurst’s fingerprints, for elimination purposes. He explained that they would be destroyed in six months, and that Mr Dewhurst could witness this, if he desired, or sign to say he authorised the SOCO to do it in his absence. I don’t think he heard a word of it. When they’d finished I sat down and had a long chat with him.

Dewhurst told me he was managing director of his own company, called Eagle Electric. They supplied components to industry and acted as agents for several big manufacturers. In the last few years they had diversified by importing fancy light
fittings and supplying them to the major department stores. They were designed in this country and made on the cheap in the Far East. It was this side of the business that Dewhurst was most personally involved with.

Every morning he took Georgina for the school bus. In the evening a child minder met her off the bus and looked after her until Mr Dewhurst called for her. Yesterday Georgina hadn’t been on it. His mother-
in-law
, Georgina’s grandma, spent a lot of time with them and helped look after her, especially at weekends. She’d been the first person he’d contacted when he discovered that his daughter was missing.

‘She’s worried sick, same as me,’ he said. ‘Will it be all right if I go and pick her up? She has her own room here. She’s a widow and idolises Georgina. She’s her only grandchild.’

‘Doesn’t your mother-in-law drive?’ I asked.

‘No. She’s quite old and has bad arthritis. I always have to collect her. Thank God I didn’t go to Birmingham.’

‘Birmingham?’

‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘My first call this morning was at Ashurst’s in Manchester. I got a puncture in their yard. So much for all-terrain vehicles. It put me behind schedule, so I cancelled a couple of late, calls in Birmingham. Otherwise I’d have been home much later. Georgina would have stayed with the child minder.’

‘I see. Would you like me to organise a car for your mother-in-law?’

‘No. She’d be frightened. It’s better if I go, and it’ll give me something to do. This waiting’s getting me down.’

I wouldn’t have sent one with a blue flashing light on the top, but he was probably right. We all have our individual ways of reacting to situations. Dewhurst looked shaken, but he was taking it well. He was grown-up, he read the papers. I refused to discuss the possibilities, but he knew as well as I did that they were frightening. He didn’t want me to call his GP for a sedative.

It was nearly one when I arrived home, and I was back at Heckley nick by six-thirty. We had a team meeting in the big conference theatre at ten. Gilbert outlined what was happening, for the benefit of the reinforcements we’d drafted in, and then handed over to me.

‘So far’, I told them, ‘we’ve had an astonishing lack of success. The inquiry has been in three main areas, namely, amongst known acquaintances last night; at the bus station this morning; and there is an ongoing physical search. What the link is between the burglary and the missing girl, we do not know. Possibilities that spring to mind are that she came home and disturbed a burglar; or maybe she was abducted in town and then brought home;
or maybe there’s no link at all. Sergeant Scott was the SOCO. What can you tell us, Paul?’

Paul raised himself from his chair and perched on the comer of the table so he could be heard more clearly. He went straight into it: ‘We looked for fingerprints, examined the MO and had a thorough general look-round. We also took plaster casts of tyre tracks in the bridle path at the end of the lane. All prints have been eliminated as belonging to members of the family; the burglars were apparently wearing gloves. We did find suitable smudge marks, and have lifted some glove prints. The most recent set of tyre tracks were made by Mr Dewhurst’s four-wheel-drive van. He says he uses the bridle path occasionally to get out onto the main road. The method of entry is interesting. The side door is a double-glazed, PVC effort. Most of our clients can jemmy one open in about three seconds. There are six different sets of marks on this door where the burglar had attempted to gain a purchase. It wasn’t a very determined attack. Inside, he had ransacked all the bedrooms. The contents of the drawers were strewn on the floor. I asked Mr Dewhurst to identify where stuff had come from. It appears that the top drawers were emptied first. This is the natural way you or I might act, but, as you all know, not the way a professional thief would do it, In short, gentlemen, we found nothing of any forensic value, but, for what it’s worth, I’d
say we are looking for an amateur.’ He sat down on his chair again.

I stood up: Thanks, Paul. Has anyone any questions?’

‘Was there an alarm?’ someone asked.

‘No,’ I replied.

‘He might bean amateur in practical terms,’ someone else suggested, but he seems to be well genned-up on the theory if he’s got away without leaving a trace behind.’

‘Good point,’ I said. ‘I haven’t told you what he stole. It appears that the only thing missing is a small quantity of jewellery, sentimental value only.’ I knew what they were thinking, so I said it for them: ‘And one little girl,’ I added.

Nigel was next in the limelight. He told us about the frantic efforts of the night before to get as many people as possible on the streets armed with photographs. We’d enquired in all the places where she might have been seen and all those where we hoped she hadn’t. Nothing.

Acting Detective Sergeant Jeff Caton had supervised the raid on the bus station earlier this morning. Sparky and myself had been there, too. I invited Jeff to say his piece.

‘Morning,’ he began. ‘The KGP school bus is run by Carter’s Coaches. It arrives at Heckley bus station at about eight and leaves at eight fifteen, prompt. Yesterday was no exception. The missing
girl did not get on it. Her father dropped her off in Bridge Street, right outside the station. Sometimes, if there was a parking space, he would walk through the station to where the coach waited, a distance of approximately seventy-five metres. Yesterday he couldn’t find a vacant place, so he double-parked to drop her off. He nipped to the newsagent’s kiosk to buy a paper and then left. The proprietor of the kiosk recognised the photograph of Georgina and remembers exchanging pleasantries with her father. He sees them arrive most mornings. Georgina sometimes buys sweets in another shop, but didn’t yesterday. Fourteen other people who use the bus station every morning at that time recognised her face. Only two claimed they saw her yesterday. None of the other kids who use the bus saw her, nor did the driver. Somewhere between her dad’s car and the school bus she vanished without a trace.’ Like a snowflake that falls into the palm of your hand.

Superintendent Wood read a press release he had prepared and told us that he was planning on recording an appeal on television tomorrow morning. None of us felt optimistic as we left the meeting to make our individual contributions to the search. The simple explanation had not been forthcoming; now we were contemplating the grotesque one.

I went up to Gilbert’s office and had a coffee with him. ‘Strong, black and preferably with caffeine,’ I requested.

‘Coming up. Would you like a tot of something stronger in it?’

‘No thanks. Did you ring Annabelle?’

He placed the coffees on two mats on his table. ‘Yes, she said she understood. She’ll realise what it’s all about when she reads the papers.’ He dunked a digestive biscuit and manoeuvred the soggy mass into his mouth just before it collapsed.

‘That’s a disgusting habit,’ I protested.

‘One of life’s little comforts, Charlie. Help yourself.’ He swallowed the remainder and went on: ‘Annabelle’s a nice girl. Too good for you, if the truth be known. You’ll lose her if you don’t watch it.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence; it’s just what I need.’

‘No, you don’t understand. It’s not you, it’s the job. Just look at yourself; take stock. You went to art college, got a degree in batik dyeing or something—’

‘It was in art.’

‘OK, art. You pretend to like decent music, appreciate good food. The fact that you listen to jungle drums and eat rubbish is due to circumstances. You could look reasonably tidy if you changed your clothes more often—’

‘I change my clothes as often as anyone,’ I protested.

‘Well, you always look crumpled. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re supposed to be a Hell’s Angel or an out-of-work violinist.’

‘I like looking crumpled. I feel comfortable when I’m crumpled. And look at yourself. You had that shirt on yesterday.’

‘No I didn’t.’ It was his turn to be indignant.

‘Yes you did.’

He looked down at it. ‘Did I? Must have picked the wrong one up this morning. Blame it on the early start. Anyhow, we’re not talking about me. The point I’m making is that you’ve some hard thinking to do. Charlie the Artist could just about pull Annabelle. Charlie the Policeman never will. She needs more than you can give her as you are at present, but she’s worth the effort. If I were you, I’d make it.’

I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. ‘Are you telling me I ought to resign?’ I asked, incredulously.

He shook his head. ‘No, of course not.’ He dunked another biscuit. ‘But outside that door all hell’s breaking loose, and I’m in here trying to sort out your love life. Last night, if I’d been in your shoes, I’d have gone round to Annabelle’s for supper.’

I stared at him for several seconds. ‘No you wouldn’t,’ I declared.

‘Yes I would, if I wanted her.’

‘I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you and I think you’re wrong.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Now, what are we doing about finding this kid?’

I left Gilbert concocting a speech for the television cameras and drove round to see Mr Dewhurst. A patrol car was parked in the lane. I pulled in behind it and had a word with the driver:

‘Is he in?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Any problems with the press or passing ghouls?’

‘No, but it suddenly seems a popular road for dog- walkers to use.’

‘Does it? Is anybody talking to them?’

‘Yes, sir, we are. Most of them say they
didn’t
come this way yesterday, but the few who
did
didn’t see anything.’

‘Fair enough. Keep at it.’

There was a Toyota Supra parked on the drive as well as the Nissan. The registration plate bore Dewhurst’s initials, MJD. Personal number plates should be compulsory – they are a lot easier to remember. I glanced round the garden at nothing in particular, then pressed the bell push. I was just considering whether it would be polite to ring again when the door was opened by an elderly lady. I fished in my pocket for my ID card.

‘Good morning, I’m Inspector Priest. Is Mr Dewhurst available?’

‘Have you found her?’ she demanded, and for a brief moment her face lit up with hope.

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m sorry, we’ve no news yet. You must be…?’

‘Mrs Eaglin. Georgina’s grandma.’ Her face sagged back to the hopeless expression it had borne a moment earlier. ‘You’d better come in.’ She took me through to the sitting room and invited me to sit down. ‘Miles is asleep,’ she told me. ‘We waited up until about four o’clock this morning and then I insisted that he take one of my pills. Do you want me to wake him?’

‘No, I’ll catch him later. If we have no success today we’re thinking about making a television appeal tomorrow morning. We’d need Mr Dewhurst down at the station at about nine thirty, if he agrees to it. Sometimes they produce good
results. I’d be grateful if you could forewarn him.’

‘What do you think’s happened to her, Inspector? She’s such a lovely girl…’ Mrs Eaglin’s eyes filled with tears and she sniffed into a tiny lace handkerchief. Her fingers were clenched as tightly as the arthritis would allow.

When she’d composed herself I said: ‘We’re hoping that Georgina played truant from school and became too frightened to come home; or maybe she got lost. We’re talking to any other children who were absent on Monday. Alternatively, she may have been abducted by, say, a childless woman who wants her for her own daughter. That happens more often than you’d realise.’

I didn’t mention that we were dragging the canal, and that the helicopter was scouring the fields and woods with the latest heat-seeking technology. We also had a long print-out of sex offenders, and were slowly working our way through it. Silly men who’d led blameless lives after flashing in the park thirty years ago were having their pasts raked up in front of their families. It hardly seemed fair, but we were grasping at the wind.

‘Mrs Eaglin, how did Georgina seem when you last saw her?’ I asked.

She lowered the hanky and thought for a few seconds. ‘Perfectly normal. In fact she was looking forward to going to school because they were rehearsing for the end-of-term play.’

‘Was she in it?’ I enquired.

A smile briefly made an appearance, then fled. ‘No, but it disrupted lessons. I think that’s what she liked it for.’

‘When did you see her?’

‘Over the weekend. Miles picks me up Friday evening, straight after collecting Georgina from the child minder. He works Saturdays and likes to have a game of golf on Sunday. My husband, George, died nearly seven years ago, so I love to come here and look after Georgina. I sometimes visit through the week, too, especially when Miles has to stay away overnight.’

‘And when did you go home?’

‘Sunday evening, about seven. They both took me. After dropping me off I believe they were going for a pizza. Not really my cup of tea, and far too late for Georgina, but I’m old-fashioned.’

I declined a drink and left after proffering more empty reassurances. It’s a thin line between false hopes and premature gloom. As long as we didn’t know, we had to assume she was still alive. Any other attitude was pointless.

On the way back to the station I had a flash of inspiration, so I went via St Bidulph’s on the Top Road. Annabelle lives in the Old Vicarage, near the church. In the door pocket of the car was a bottle of claret, and the back seat held a rapidly fading bunch of salmon-pink roses. I stood on her
doorstep, bottle in one hand and wilting blooms in the other, rehearsing my lines: ‘Sorry I’m late, I was held up.’

But she wasn’t in.

Wednesday morning we filmed the TV appeal. The crew set up their cameras and lights in the conference room and the producer went through the scripts with Gilbert and myself. Gilbert introduced me as Acting Chief Inspector Priest.

‘What’s this Acting Chief bit?’ I whispered to him at the first possible opportunity.

‘It goes down better with the public,’ he replied in a hushed voice. ‘Gives you a bit more status.’

‘I don’t want to be Acting Chief,’ I hissed back.

‘Well you are.’

‘Officially?’

‘Yes.’

‘Paid?’

‘Yes, bloody well paid.’

Our whispers were growing louder and faces were turning towards us. ‘Are you trying to get rid of me, Gilbert?’

The Super’s face was red with frustration and he thumped a palm with a fist.

‘For Christ’s sake, Charlie, I thought I was doing you a favour!’

‘Oh. Well, thanks.’

I liked being the longest-ever-serving inspector.
I’d been as young as it was possible to be when appointed, and then made no further progress up the ladder. It was a record I was proud of. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr Dewhurst going into the toilets.

‘Excuse me,’ called the producer. ‘We’ll begin if you’re all ready. You first, Superintendent. Quiet, please.’

‘You’re on,’ I said to Gilbert, adding: ‘You won’t mind if I go to wave Willy at the wall, will you?’

In the gents’, Dewhurst was standing at the wash-basins, running water into one of them. He looked up as I entered and we exchanged polite but grim nods. He left as I was having my pee. I washed my hands in the sink next to the one he’d used and followed him out.

There was another delay for some reason. Mrs Eaglin was standing with Dewhurst, giving him support before his ordeal by television. He had the worst part of all. Eventually they were ready and the producer called for Gilbert again. As he was leaving me I told him: ‘Your hair’s sticking up at the back, Gilbert.’

He gave it a perfunctory wipe with his hand.

‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s still sticking up. You ought to comb it.’

‘Bloody hell, Charlie!’ he hissed at me. ‘It’s not a frigging game show. What’s got into you?’

Gilbert had one minute to tell the story so far;
then Dewhurst did his bit. It was harrowing. He broke down and wept and couldn’t finish off what he wanted to say. Nearly everybody in the room was crying with him, some openly, some internally. Then I had to go on and tell people where to come with their information. I don’t envy newsreaders: I felt shagged-out when it was over.

The film was shown locally on the lunchtime news, and broadcast nationally in the evening. The response was phenomenal. We imported extra staff to man the computers. Over the next three weeks every single lead was followed, and every one of them took us up a dead end. Georgina Dewhurst had vanished from the face of the globe as effectively as if she had never existed.

We checked over three hundred alibis and made thirty-one arrests. Of these, only two reached the ‘helping us with our enquiries’ stage. ‘Georgina – Man Detained’ screamed the headlines in the tabloids. We were only going through the motions, though. The first was Billy Sunshine. Billy stands just outside the bus station most days, rocking gently backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet. He usually has a bottle sticking out of his jacket pocket and a big smile for everyone who passes by. There had been one report of a little girl being seen hand-in-hand with a man heading away from the area. A scruffy man – it could have been
Billy. He’d been shown the photo on the Tuesday morning and said he recognised her. We kept him in overnight and gave him breakfast. He had a better alibi than Nixon when Kennedy was shot, so we handed him over to the detox centre.

The other one was more like it. It wasn’t as a result of fine detective work – someone wrote us an anonymous letter. Terry Finnister lived in Workington, but had delivered a lorryload of bathroom equipment to a company in Heckley early that Monday morning. And, the letter-writer kindly advised us, he was a convicted sex offender. They went on to give us some advice on how to treat his sort. I took Nigel to Workington to have a word with him, and we brought him back to Heckley.

It was a mess. When he’d been a teenager his mother had remarried. Her new husband had a young son. Finnister served five years for buggering the child while baby-sitting. During the interview he told us that his stepfather had raped him, and that his mother had died of an overdose while he was in jail. At the time of Georgina’s disappearance he’d been off-loading two dozen avocado, low-level, easy-flush toilet pedestals, and he had the invoices to prove it; plus a receipt for his breakfast, eaten shortly afterwards. We asked the local SOCO to give the cab of his lorry a going-over, but we lacked enthusiasm.

The Reverend Gerry Wilde, vicar of St Peter and St Paul’s, was annoyed; or as annoyed as he ever allowed himself to become. His hatchback crested the brow in the road where he gained his first view of St Peter and St Paul’s. He always looked forward to that dramatic moment. First the trees loomed up out of the ground, then they appeared to swing to one side as the road curved, revealing the majestic prospect of his church. Normally, the Union flag, taut in the stiff breeze, would have added an extra
frisson
of delight. The Reverend Wilde was firstly a man of God, and secondly a patriot. Not that he would have separated them in that way. For him, the two conditions were so tightly intertwined that he could not understand how anyone could claim to be one without the other. Certainly not if one was an Englishman. But today the flag was an aberration. Three times he’d told Joseph, the verger, to take it down; and there it still was, four days after Coronation Day, proclaiming heaven-knows-what to the parish. Soon it would have to go up again for the Duke of Edinburgh’s birthday, but it made a mockery of his efforts if the two events ran together.

He put the car in its garage alongside the vicarage. He’d have to have a word with Joseph – be more firm with him. He hated any form of unpleasantness, though. And, of course, Joseph had worshipped here all his life, whereas he was a newcomer, relatively speaking.

No, he’d teach by example. Jesus washed His disciples’ feet; he, Gerry Wilde, would strike the flag. Then he would leave it for Joseph to put away. Maybe that would impress upon the old man that he meant what he said. He took his tower key from its hook in the kitchen and set off across the graveyard to the church.

In the ringing chamber the six hemp ropes, with their coloured sallies, hung through the guides in the ceiling. The vicar noted that one rope was shorter than the others. That meant that the big tenor bell was in the vertical position, on the backstroke, ready to be set swinging with the minimum of effort at the next bell-ringing session. He locked the chamber door behind him and put the key in his pocket. If he was going up the tower he didn’t want anybody touching the ropes. One ton of bell was poised to fall – he didn’t want it falling on him.