The squad room was a hive of activity. Fourteen officers were all backtracking several weeks, retracing steps, re-investigating, re-interviewing, rereading, reversing through everything they knew, back to the moment the women were first mentioned.
They knew that they would not be traveling on their own passports, and that their mobiles had all been left behind at their respective homes. They knew that the school Angela’s children attended was under the impression that the Dunn family had gone on holiday to Greece; Riel and Aggie had been practicing yassas and efcharisto for days. They guessed that Angela would have lied to her children about where they were going, but they had to explore the possibility of them being in Greece regardless. They also knew that Ester’s parole officer was a total waste of space. He hadn’t even known she’d left the Isle of Wight.
Jack watched three PCs systematically work their way through Angela’s flat, expecting to uncover a clue. What did they think they’d find? Flight information jotted on a notepad perhaps, together with the name of the hotel they’d be staying in? Jack knew that the flat would be clean, because he knew Angela was smart. He paced the lounge, thinking. Not only did these women have to disappear without a trace, they had to disappear with £27 million. Jack had a sudden flash of inspiration and bolted for the front door.
Irene at number 36 remembered Jack from his last visit, and excitedly showed off the dining chairs Angela had re-covered, now sitting around her family-sized dining table.
“I wanted to ask you about Rob.” Jack showed his ID and Irene looked confused. “He’s done nothing wrong. I’d just like to ask you about his business. He does up cars, doesn’t he?”
Irene didn’t know how to answer in case she got Rob into trouble.
“Irene, I just need to know if their flat has a private garage.”
Rob’s double garage was also his workspace but it was sparsely kitted out now—as though the best tools had disappeared along with his family. Half-empty shelves lined two of the walls, and different sized hooks lined a third. Some of the tools left behind dated back decades; Jack could loosely date them because Charlie owned similar ones. Rob, like Charlie, was a man who liked quality and remained loyal to his old work tools through the passing years. He was probably an ordinary man, dragged into an extraordinary world by the woman he loved. Jack knew that he’d do exactly the same for Maggie.
He scrabbled about in oil-stained filing cabinets and chests of drawers. He sifted through stray nuts and bolts, spare parts and mislaid drill bits but found nothing of significance. After about twenty minutes of pointless searching through the neatest garage he’d ever seen, Jack stepped out into the fresh air. Boys on bikes circled just outside, looking over his shoulder to see if the garage contained anything worth stealing.
“What sort of car was in here last?”
The biggest kid got £5 out of Jack before telling him about the bus. Once he’d paid up, Jack pinched the brow of his nose, waiting for a recent memory to come back to him; then he headed at a jog back toward the entrance to the flats. To the left of the main door was a narrow space where five large bins were stored—four black, one blue. Behind the black bins was a sheltered dry spot of ground being used by at least two homeless people. Blankets and sleeping bags were rolled up against the wall, together with a rucksack and a pile of tatty, ripped old foam squares that Jack expected would be laid out into a mattress at night. These foam squares were the memory he was searching for—he’d seen them in Connie’s house.
Jack flipped the lid on the bins to reveal more squares of foam—dirtier, smaller, more torn. The rough sleepers had certainly salvaged the best ones. He took out his mobile and snapped some photos before racing back to Rob’s garage. He’d left the door wide open and the gannet children were swarming.
Back in Angela’s flat, Jack called Ridley. He was cautious about going to him with another hunch, but a hunch was all he had. He requested that someone check into a bus purchase made by Robert Chuke, and he told Ridley about the foam squares. He’d already googled different types of vehicle seat stuffing, and his theory was that if the women had emptied the seats, then it had to be because they were putting something else in. He had no idea if twenty-five seats would hold £27 million, but Angela was a talented seamstress, so it could fit. These women weren’t criminals who’d be escaping on a private jet; they were ordinary people who would use their innate skills to their best advantage—driving out the country in a second-hand bus with a couple of kids in tow seemed typically “them.”
In the time it took Ridley to say “leave it to me,” Jack had had another thought.
“Sir, did the Chester police get a list of the kids at Julia’s place?”
When Jack came off the phone from Ridley, he went back into the flat.
“This doesn’t look like a search,” he said to the uniforms as he looked around the lounge. “This looks like you’ve ransacked the place! Someone lives here! Tidy it up.”
He stepped back out onto the balcony and logged into HOLMES, scrolling through the list of kids found to be living at Julia’s. He wasn’t certain what he was looking for but when he’d thought about Angela absconding with her children, even taking the memories of her dead baby, he’d remembered Julia saying she’d die for those kids . . . and yet she’d just left them all behind?
He thought of Sam. An unwanted scallywag who occupied a soft spot in Julia’s heart. His name was not on the list of children present at the care home. He thought of Suzie, the gentle giant of a girl who’d helped Julia protect a waif from Darren, the bully—and her name was not on the list, either. Darren’s name had been added in red by the police; he was in a secure children’s home as of a week ago, having been arrested in possession of a stolen bike and a rucksack full of his own clothes. They’d assumed he was running away—and not for the first time.
Most of these will never know where they’re from, so it’s vital for them to know where they’re going. Do you know where you’re from?
Julia’s words spun round in Jack’s head. She was doing so much for so many kids who, without her, would be abused, corrupted or even murdered. Jack could have been just like Sam if he’d not been rescued by Charlie and Penny. He didn’t feel he was chasing hardened criminals who deserved to be in prison. He didn’t feel he was making the streets a safer place for ordinary people to live in. He felt like he’d be making the world a worse place by removing these women from it. What harm were they actually doing by taking long-forgotten money and starting life again?
Darren had been in three fights during his short stay in the children’s home and had won all of them. His position in the hierarchy was strong and the older lads were already looking to recruit him to their gang. He’d prove useful on the outside, seeing as he was only eleven and, therefore, highly unlikely to get nicked for anything and definitely not in danger of getting prosecuted.
Daniel, Julia’s helper from her care home, had been to see Darren on the day he was arrested. Darren had attacked him, scratching his neck and punching him in the balls so hard that his eyes had streamed for at least a minute. Today, Darren was calm, but silent. He was a terrifyingly self-destructive mixture of depression, helplessness and fury. He didn’t listen to a word Daniel said; he hardly blinked and the tears flowed unashamedly. Darren was broken.
As Daniel walked out, Jack walked in. Having never met, they passed each other in the corridor with nothing more than a tight smile and a nod.
The Quiet Room, where Darren had been put in order to meet Jack, was very similar to the police station’s Soft Interview Room. It was plainly pleasant, with comfy sofas and a two-way mirror. Jack knew that, behind the mirror, there’d be a camera set to record this meeting. And the man standing just inside the door was there to make sure they didn’t need anything.
Jack decided not to treat Darren like a kid.
“I know she was taking you away,” he said. “And I know you screwed up by nicking a bike. I expect you thought she could just hide it for you underneath the bus.” Darren’s eyes flicked from the floor to Jack, but his face betrayed nothing. “Your rucksack was full of summer clothes, so I guess you were off to a sunny country in Europe. What was your new name going to be? If I could start again and choose any name in the world, I think I’d be called . . .” The first name to pop into Jack’s head was “Harry,” but he didn’t finish his sentence. “Listen, Darren, I know you like Julia. I like her too. But she’s making a mistake that will get her into a lot of trouble and I’m trying to help her before it’s too late.”
Darren rolled his eyes at Jack’s lie. He didn’t know what Julia had done, but he knew that she was the strongest and most loving adult that had ever passed through his life. If she was running to another country then she’d not just made a mistake, she’d done something to change her life. And there was no way he was going to mess that up for her.
Once Jack reached his dead end, he sat back and relaxed.
“So what do you want to be when you’re older?”
Darren looked at Jack as if he was stupid. His hard eyes seemed to say I ain’t getting older.
Jack slipped to the edge of his seat and leaned toward Darren. The man by the door tensed as he readied himself for a potential assault.
“When I was adopted—” Jack’s words made Darren’s eyes widen—“I was saved from experiencing any of this. You’ve not been lucky so far, Darren, but what happens next is up to you. You either join a gang—being protected and feeling like you belong somewhere. Or you stay on your own and, in the end, be better than all of them. A respected man doesn’t shout and throw his weight around, Darren. A respected man is quiet and calm . . . and terrifying. Because you never quite know what he’s capable of. Be that man. Smile . . . and they will never see you coming.”
Jack smiled, his eyes crinkling to prove he was being genuine.
He stood quickly, making Darren jump a little. Then he held his hand out for Darren to shake. Darren stood, and shook Jack’s hand. Jack held on.
“DC Jack Warr. Remember the name. You ever need anything, you let me know.”
By the time Jack left the room, Darren was a different person.
Jack walked the battleship-gray corridor toward the squad room, thinking through everything they had. Laura would have sourced an image of the bus and a license plate by now, although that would more than likely have been changed. And based on the time of day Darren was arrested, Jack’s latest hunch was that Julia and the bus were probably heading north to get to Europe, rather than using Dover. Jack was buzzing—he’d single-handedly worked out how and where the women were traveling, and how they were transporting the money. Now what they needed were the false names the women were traveling under—then they’d have them. Then they’d have solved the biggest train robbery in history.
Jack entered the squad room with an uncharacteristic spring in his step and came to an abrupt halt. Maggie was sitting in Ridley’s office. She should have been in bed, resting before her night shift. Jack slowed to a snail’s pace.
Maggie stood to meet him.
“Penny called.”
She was looking at Jack in exactly the same way he imagined she looked at the relatives of dying patients, with an air of professionalism that allowed her to speak without becoming emotional.
“Charlie’s in the hospital in St. Lucia. DCI Ridley knows and he’s agreed to let you go.”