The Widow(9)

Unfortunately, one of the reporters had removed the family album from the mother’s flat, so the police hadn’t seen a photo of Uncle Jim—a local registered sex offender—and realized his connection with the missing girl.

He’d tried to have sex with the child but failed, and Sparkes believed he would have killed her as the detectives ran around in circles, sometimes only yards from her prison, if another member of the extended family hadn’t got drunk and rung in with the name. Laura escaped with bruising to her body and mind. He could still see her eyes as he opened the door to the cupboard. Terror—no other word for it. Terror that he was going to be like Uncle Jim. He’d called a female detective forward to hold Laura in her arms. Safe at last. Everyone had tears in their eyes except Laura. She looked numb.

He’d always thought he’d let her down somehow. Should’ve found the link earlier. Should’ve asked different questions. Should’ve found her quicker. His boss and the press had treated it like a triumph, but he couldn’t celebrate. Not after he’d seen those eyes.

Wonder where she is now, he thought. Wonder where Uncle Jim is now.

? ? ?

Manor Road was filled with reporters, neighbors, and police officers, each interviewing one another in a verbal orgy.

Sparkes pushed his way through the knot of people at the gate of number 44a, nodding at the journalists he recognized. “Bob,” a woman’s voice called. “Hi. Any news? Any leads?” Kate Waters pushed forward and smiled mock wearily. He’d last seen her during a grisly murder investigation in the New Forest and had enjoyed a couple of drinks and a gossip in the weeks it took to nail the husband.

They went way back, bumping into each other every so often on different cases and picking up where they’d left off. Not really a friendship, he thought. It was definitely all about work, but Kate was all right. Last time, she’d held onto a line in the story she’d stumbled on until he was ready for the information to come out. He owed her one.

“Hello, Kate. Just got here but may have something to say later,” he said, ducking past the uniform guarding the house.

There was a smell of cats and cigarettes in the front room; Dawn Elliott was huddled on a sofa, trembling fingers clutching a mobile phone and a doll. Her blond hair was tethered off her face in a halfhearted ponytail, making her look even younger. She looked up at the tall, serious-looking man in the doorway, her face collapsing.

“Have you found her?” she managed.

“Ms. Elliott, I’m Detective Inspector Bob Sparkes. I’m here to help find Bella, and I want you to help me.”

Dawn looked at him. “But I’ve told the police everything. What’s the good of asking the same questions over and over? Just find her. Find my baby!” she shouted hoarsely.

He nodded and sat down beside her. “Come on, Dawn, let’s go through it together,” he said gently. “There may be something new you remember.”

So she told him her tale, dry sobs choking off her words. Bella was Dawn Elliott’s only child, the result of a doomed affair with a married man she’d met at a nightclub, a sweet little girl who loved watching Disney videos and dancing. Dawn didn’t mix much with the neighbors. “They look down their noses at me. I’m a single mum on benefits. They think I’m a scrounger,” she told Bob Sparkes.

But as they talked, his team and scores of volunteers from the community, many still in their work clothes, were searching back gardens, dustbins, hedges, attics, basements, sheds, cars, kennels, and compost heaps all over the neighborhood. The light was beginning to fade outside, and a voice suddenly cried out, “Bella! Bella! Where are you, lovey?” and Dawn Elliott jumped to her feet to look out the window.

“Dawn, come and sit down,” Sparkes said. “I want to ask if Bella has misbehaved today.” She shook her head.

“Have you been cross with her about anything?” he continued. “Little ones can be a bit of a trial, can’t they? Did you have to smack her or anything?”

The intent behind the questions slowly dawned on the young woman, and she shrieked her innocence. “No, of course not. I never smack her. Well, not very often—only when she acts up sometimes. I haven’t hurt her. Someone’s taken her . . .”

Sparkes patted her hand and asked the family liaison officer to make another cup of tea.

A young constable put his head around the sitting room door and gestured to his senior officer that he needed a word.

“Someone saw a bloke wandering about the area earlier this afternoon,” he told Sparkes. “A neighbor saw him. Didn’t recognize him.”

“Description?”

“A bloke on his own, he said. Long hair, looked rough. Neighbor said he was looking in the cars.”

Sparkes fished his phone out of his pocket and called his sergeant. “Looks like a live one,” he said. “No sign of the child. We’ve got a description of a suspicious character walking down the road, details on their way. Get it out there to the team. I’m going to talk to the witness.

“And let’s knock on the door of every known sex offender in the area,” he added, his gut churning at the thought of the child in the clutches of any of the twenty-two registered sex offenders homed by the local authority on the Westland housing estate.

Hampshire Police Force had about three hundred offenders in its area: a shifting population of flashers, voyeurs, pedophiles, and rapists who disguised themselves as friendly neighbors in unsuspecting communities.