TWELVE

Everyone had gathered in the small car park that served the health centre and library as well as the Memorial Hall. It was also, according to a handwritten sign, the venue for a car-boot sale the following weekend. There were perhaps a dozen print journalists and half that number again working with cameras from the BBC, ITN, Sky and Channel Five. The day was dimming quickly and several technicians wielded hand-held lamps, ready to go.

Thorne stood behind the media line; just another interested observer, alongside those locals who had braved the cold weather instead of simply watching it at home on one of the rolling news channels.

‘Bloody daft, all this. All these people . . . ’

Thorne had found himself standing next to the same old man with the terrier who had spoken to Helen outside the Bates house. ‘So, why are you here?’ he asked.

The old man looked at him as though the question were ridiculous. ‘Got to walk the dog.’

Thorne turned side on to the old man and took out his phone.

‘Bit ghoulish though, wouldn’t you say?’

With no way of knowing that he was a police officer, Thorne had to presume that the old man had him marked down as one of the ghouls. He heard him hawk spit up into his mouth.

‘Won’t hear anything we don’t already know, I don’t suppose. They won’t be answering any questions.’

The expert opinion, casually rendered, suggested that it was not the first such event the old man had attended in the past few weeks. Clearly, his dog needed a lot of walking. ‘So, what is it you think you know?’ Thorne asked him. The dog was sniffing at his shin.

‘He took those girls, didn’t he? Bates.’ He spat the name out, pulling the dog back towards him. ‘They’re still looking for them, because he won’t tell anyone where they are. That sort never do though, do they?’ He pointed, his hand shaking slightly, towards the cameras ahead of him. ‘They want all this carry-on, don’t they? They want to be famous.’

Thorne said nothing, though he could not deny that he’d come across a few of that sort. One man, especially. He held his breath as the roar of waves crashing against rocks rose suddenly above the low chatter of those around him. The scream of seabirds and the feel of something obscene between his fingers.

‘We get a few visitors here.’ The old man appeared not to care that the conversation had become a monologue. ‘To see the abbey and what have you . . . they’ll be coming because of all this, now. Guided tours, I shouldn’t wonder, to see where it happened. Not that some of the shopkeepers will be complaining. The restaurants.’

Thorne moved away. Dialling Helen’s number, he walked back out on to the pavement.

‘It’s me,’ he said, when Helen answered. ‘Everything OK?’

Helen said that everything was fine.

Thorne told her where he was, stepped back as a white van rounded the corner quickly and tore through a large puddle in the road.

‘Yeah, we’re about to watch it,’ Helen said.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Yeah . . . ’

Thorne understood that Helen could not speak freely, so he didn’t push it. He asked when she wanted him to come and pick her up.

‘About half an hour?’ She sounded tired, ready to call it a day.

The lamps were coming on behind him, so Thorne walked back into the car park. ‘I’ll see you in a bit,’ he said.

Flanked by several officers and civilian staff, the Assistant Chief Constable for Warwickshire walked briskly out through the doors to the Memorial Hall. He was around the same age as Cornish; younger than Thorne. He was tall and skinny, an imposing and authoritative figure in his best dress uniform, though the cap was perhaps a little large for his head. As he took a notebook from his pocket, a smartly dressed young woman stepped ahead of him.

‘Assistant Chief Constable Harris will now make a short statement, after which I’m afraid there will not be time to take any questions.’ There were immediate grumblings, but the media liaison officer simply raised a well-practised hand. ‘In an investigation of this nature, I’m sure you will appreciate that time is of the essence. So, thanks for your understanding.’

She smiled and stepped back, nodded to the ACC.

Harris glanced down at his notebook, then addressed the gathering without needing to look at it again.

‘We are continuing to question a forty-three-year-old local man, in connection with the abduction of Poppy Johnston and the disappearance of Jessica Toms. As far as that investigation goes, all possible efforts are being made to ascertain their whereabouts and we remain hopeful of a positive outcome. Further information will be made available as and when it becomes appropriate to do so, but until then I can assure you that we are doing everything we can. We are giving this case the highest priority. Once again, I’m grateful to the residents of Polesford for their continued support and their co-operation in this matter. Thank you . . . ’

Short and sweet. The media liaison officer looked pleased.

The instant the ACC stepped back, the questions that he would not have time to answer began to be asked; shouted.

‘Can you confirm that the man you’ve arrested is Stephen Bates?’

‘Do you think the girls are still alive?’

‘What’s Bates saying to you . . . ?’

They were still shouting as the ACC and his entourage disappeared back inside the Memorial Hall, and they were still filming. Footage of the police refusing to answer questions was always nice to have.

Thorne watched the crowd begin to disperse as soon as the doors had closed. The lamps were switched off. Journalists and cameramen climbed into vans or headed away quickly in search of the nearest pub.

The old man and his dog walked past him. ‘Told you,’ the old man said. ‘Bloody waste of time.’

Thorne turned and moved off in the other direction and found himself walking alongside one of the reporters who had been firing questions at him earlier, when he had left the house in which Linda and her family were holed up. The man had a recorder slung over his shoulder. He detached the microphone as he walked, wound the lead around it and shoved it into a rucksack.

He nodded to Thorne. ‘What did you make of that?’

Thorne could not be certain that he had been recognised. The reporter did not seem to be paying a great deal of attention to him, professional or otherwise, and to all intents and purposes he was simply making conversation.

Thorne had nothing to say, one way or the other.

‘Like the man said, you’ve got to stay hopeful, right?’ The reporter heaved his rucksack on to his shoulder. ‘That’s the line most of tomorrow’s papers are going to be taking, anyway. That’s the big headline.’ He raised a hand as if to write it in the air. ‘Keep hoping . . . ’

Thorne jogged across the road and away in the other direction.

Walking towards the supermarket, where he’d left the car, he was thinking about those flowers propped against the gates of St Mary’s school, some of the messages he’d seen.

Words that had faded, or run in the rain.

PRAYING FOR YOU.

ALL OUR THOUGHTS WHEREVER YOU ARE.

OUR LITTLE ANGELS.

The implication was clear enough, and sobering.

Hope was all well and good.