Their Lost Daughters (DI Jackman & DS Evans #2)(4)
Marie walked in behind Jackman and bestowed on the super her very best radiant smile. It failed to bring even the slightest movement to those tight, thin lips.
Superintendent Ruth Crooke gestured irritably to the only two chairs available in the room and launched into a lengthy complaint about whoever she’d just been speaking to.
‘I’ve had some damned financial analyst bleating down my ear for the last ten minutes and I swear he’s never set foot in a police station in his whole life. Every initiative he came up with was bloody crap.’ She flung a notebook across her desk and leaned back in her chair. ‘Not that I think he’ll be phoning back. I told him exactly why his money-saving theories should be flushed down the pan.’
‘I don’t know how you do it, ma’am,’ said Jackman. ‘Your job would have my brains turning into minestrone in five minutes flat.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, someone has to. And what I do, I do rather well. At least you guys have someone fighting your corner. For instance, last time I looked, you still had radios, Kevlar vests, and cars, or has something changed since I last went downstairs?’
Jackman smiled. Marie knew that although he didn’t like the boss much, he had a grudging admiration for anyone who could juggle budgets and targets.
‘No, we’re still communicating, protected and mobile. And thank heavens, because I don’t think we’d do too well trying to police these fens on bicycles.’ He sat back and gazed across the oversized shiny desk.
Ruth Crooke shook her head. ‘Anyway, as talking to you two about anything other than criminal activity is a complete waste of my valuable time, I’ll save my breath.’ She pushed a thick folder across the table towards them.
Marie saw the name on it and a shiver went through her.
Kenya Black.
‘We have some pressure on us. It’s a cold case I know, but the mother has decided to resurrect her campaign. She’s trying to get the press to run with it again, but big style this time. She is attracting interest from some famous faces and using social media to really stir things up.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Can’t blame the poor soul, of course, but we won’t look good if we are doing sweet FA, so upstairs want it put to bed, permanently. It was never closed, and although I know that you are dealing with Shauna Kelly’s disappearance, I specifically want your team to take this one, and I want you to make it your number one priority.’
Jackman sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘My God. It must be seven or eight years since Kenya disappeared, and you are making it high priority?’
Everyone in the area knew about the disappearance of the little girl, but as neither Jackman nor Marie had been directly involved in the case, the finer details were hazy.
Jackman frowned. ‘I know it was put on the back burner, but it is still an ongoing investigation. Surely one of the other teams went over the whole thing less than three months ago?’
‘They did, but science and forensics move forward every day.’
Marie racked her brain for information. Emblazoned across her mind was a photograph that the media latched on to at the time. A child with white-blonde hair sitting on a beanbag with her pet dog. She wore jeans and a yellow hooded sweatshirt with a teddy bear motif on it. Her small fingers were clinging to the animal’s fur. She was the epitome of angelic. This heart-wrencher had instigated the biggest public-supported hunt that the Fens had ever known.
Marie frowned. Memories were coming back like flashes from a newsreel. ‘Someone thought they saw her, didn’t they? With another child, playing close to the seal reserve out at Hurn Point?’
‘And a week later one of her trainers was found washed up on the beach three miles up the coast from the sighting, which gave credence to the man’s report.’ The super’s face was stony.
‘And it was assumed that she’d been swept out to sea.’ Marie remembered the tabloid headline: Was it Murder, or just a Terrible Accident?
‘That’s the long and the short of it. The parents were well off, but no ransom demand ever came, no more evidence was found, and there were no more reported sightings — well, none other than the usual crank ones. And after a while it was decided that she had most probably drowned and we were forced to scale down the investigation.’
‘But now you want us to give it priority again?’ asked Jackman.
‘We want you to start at the beginning and go through it with fresh eyes and a considerably enhanced budget should you need it.’ The superintendent looked at Jackman with an unnerving intensity. ‘I want this case closed, for good. And although we don’t always see eye to eye, I have to admit that your team has something about it. I don’t know what it is, but if anyone can find out what happened to that little girl and get this wretched case sewn up, I believe it’s you.’
Jackman took up the file and stared at it.
Marie felt a strange sensation course through her. Excitement was not quite the right word, it was more like trepidation. No one who had worked the original investigation had bought into the accident theory, but after years of fruitless digging it had been taken out of their hands. So, maybe it was time for a new team to try to provide her grieving family with some sort of closure.
Jackman stood up. ‘We’ll give it our very best shot, ma’am, you can depend on that. But Shauna Kelly has to come first right now. And if that girl who drowned is her, I’m not going to compromise these early days of the enquiry. She belongs to one of our own, and although I wouldn’t treat it differently to any other death, we do feel deeply for her mother.’