Again Agnes Wilshire’s landline rang out. Freddie Googled St Albans dentists: there were twenty-seven of them. ‘What about if I start calling local dentists – see if we can find out where she is?’ She braced as Nas sped past cars on the slip road off the motorway. She’d stopped looking at the speedometer when she saw it break a hundred.
‘Patient confidentiality. They probably won’t confirm if she’s there,’ Nas said.
She had to try. She dialled the first number; an answerphone clicked in. ‘You’ve reached the Maltings Dental Practice. Our opening hours are 9 a.m. until 5.30 p.m. Monday to Friday.’ Dammit. She tried the next, ringing off as she heard another machine click in. ‘Why does no one get up in the bloody mornings!’
They were passing gaggles of school kids now, bustling towards their day. They’d made record time, but it still might not be enough. Freddie felt sick thinking of Lottie. They had less than an hour.
Nas drove straight up to the modern school building, beeping the horn to move the blur of school kids.
‘Pigs!’ a lad shouted, and there was a clap of laughter. Nasreen gave them a cold stare as she slammed her door.
Kids had their phones out and were taking photos of the car, its blue lights still flashing behind the grille. Up ahead a woman in a long dark skirt and coat turned to look at the commotion. Freddie did a double take. Was it just wishful thinking? No: she recognised her grey hair and glasses. ‘Oh my god! That’s her! That’s Agnes! I saw her photo online!’
‘Mrs Wilshire?’ Nasreen jogged towards her.
‘Yes?’ The woman looked from the car to them.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Cudmore and this is Freddie Venton. We’re investigating a case and we wondered if we could ask you some questions?’ Was she allowed to say that if she’d been suspended?
‘Oh, of course. Won’t you come in?’ Mrs Wilshire stood aside as they filed into the reception area.
‘We wanted to ask you some questions about a pupil called Alex Black. We believe he would have been here six years ago,’ Nas said.
Freddie’s heart was pounding. Mrs Wilshire looked thoughtful. ‘Alex? That’s quite a popular name. Alex Black, you say?’
Nas nodded.
‘I’m not sure. I think I remember. Short boy. Dark hair. You remember some children so well. It can be for all kinds of reasons, but there are so many of them. People stop me in the street to say hello, and I have no recollection of them at all. I just ask them how they’re doing.’ She smiled sweetly. Freddie felt her heart drop. Possibly short with dark hair wasn’t much to go on.
‘What about a Daisy Jones? Blonde girl. She might have been in the same year as Alex.’
‘Oh, now Daisy I remember. Such a pretty thing. One of those always surrounded by friends. She had such a lovely smile.’ Mrs Wilshire looked worried. ‘Nothing’s happened to her, has it?’
‘No she’s fine, as far as we’re aware,’ Nas said.
Freddie looked around at the felt boards on the walls. The displays had been changed since they’d been in the day before.
‘Do you remember anything happening between Alex Black and Daisy Jones?’ Nas said.
‘I’m not sure, dear. I’m sorry,’ the lady said. ‘But I do remember some upset in her final year. I can’t remember what it was over. A boyfriend, probably. You know what teenagers are like.’
Freddie was staring at the board in front of her, which documented a biology field trip. There were sketches of trees and animals, graphs and pie charts, printed fact sheets and photos. It was a wood. She leant in to read one project: ‘Biodiversity in Wildhill Wood.’ The wood Chloe’s body had been found in. ‘Is this Wildhill Wood?’ she said. Nas’s ears pricked. ‘Do the school go here frequently?’
‘Why, yes it is,’ smiled Agnes Wilshire. ‘We take the Year Elevens annually. It’s a beautiful place, great fun for the kids.’
Nas’s voice had quickened. ‘Would Alex Black have gone there? And Daisy Jones?’
‘I would expect so. They were probably the last year we camped: it’s so hard to get parental volunteers that we just go for the day now.’
‘Is there a campsite in the wood?’ Nas said.
Freddie was staring at the sketches. Bats. Birds. A badger.
‘There is an education centre,’ Mrs Wilshire was saying. Freddie took her phone out. Flicked through her photos. ‘It was used as a hide and the children used to sleep there. They’d stay up and observe bats and owls in their natural habitat.’
Owls.
‘Nas!’ Freddie held her phone against the board. She’d taken a photo of the blown-up section of the wall hanging behind Lottie’s head, the elongated loops they thought might be a drawing of bananas or pencils. She held it next to a student’s drawing of an owl mid-flight. The owl’s wings were in full span, the feathers on the end forming a row of elongated loops. ‘It’s a wing.’
This is it.
‘Mrs Wilshire, do they have drawings of animals on the wall?’ Nas asked quickly.
‘How did you know that?’ Mrs Wilshire asked. ‘They had all these lovely scientific diagrams. But they lost funding and closed it a few years ago now.’
‘It’s the wing tip of an owl,’ Freddie said. Her voice sounded far away as blood rushed through her ears. ‘He’s got her in Wildhill Wood. In the education centre.’ She looked at Nas and they started for the door.