6

Anne and David Armstrong lived in a large detached house on the outskirts of the city, towards Driffield. Anne came to the door. Slim and middle-aged, she was expensively dressed in a cashmere sweater and pearls, and her short, fair hair was neatly cut. She looked faintly puzzled as Geraldine introduced herself, and smiled politely without inviting her into the house.

‘I take it this is about my husband? Did he ask you to call here? I know he’s had some problems recently with political extremists. It’s an unpleasant fuss over nothing, and it’s high time you put a stop to it.’

Quietly Geraldine explained that her visit had nothing to do with David. ‘But I am here in my professional capacity. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

‘What’s this about?’

‘Your daughter came to see us.’

‘My daughter?’ Anne echoed faintly, her air of slightly righteous outrage fading. ‘Has something happened to her? Is she all right?’

‘Your daughter is fine, but she’s very upset. Is there somewhere more comfortable we can talk?’

‘I’m sure this must be a mistake,’ Anne said. ‘Jessica would have come to me if there was anything wrong.’

Still remonstrating, she led Geraldine into a small study at the back of the house.

‘Do you know where your son-in-law is?’ Geraldine asked as soon as they were sitting down.

Anne scowled. ‘I might have known he would be at the bottom of this. What’s he gone and done? If he’s got himself in hot water, I’m afraid he’s going to have to face the consequences himself. My husband and I are not going to shoulder the responsibility for any trouble he’s got himself mixed up in.’

‘Jessica told us he’s away this weekend at a stag party, possibly in Amsterdam.’

She hesitated before adding that Jason had lied to his wife. A quick passport check had indicated that he had not left the country, and his car had been discovered abandoned not far outside the city. Wherever he had gone, he had not wanted to be followed.

‘So what you’re telling me is that he was off enjoying himself with his friends for the weekend, and he didn’t want Jessica to know where he was because he didn’t want to be interrupted at his stag party. I’m sorry to say this, Sergeant, but what you’re telling me doesn’t surprise me. Our son-in-law is a selfish man.’

Anne gave a dismissive grunt, as if to say that no decent man would be off gallivanting with his friends, leaving his wife at home with a baby. Geraldine inclined her head. It was certainly possible that Jason had lied to his wife about where he was going, but equally, Jessica might have lied to mislead the police for some reason that was not yet clear.

‘The problem is, he’s left home and your granddaughter’s missing,’ she said quietly.

‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ Anne shook her head, looking baffled. ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean, Daisy’s missing?’ The reality of the words seemed to hit her for the first time as she uttered them aloud. ‘I have to go and be with Jessica… We have to find my granddaughter. Have you spoken to Jason? Where has he taken her? But I don’t understand. Why didn’t he say anything? Have you spoken to him? Please…’

Her distress seemed genuine.

Geraldine leaned forward. ‘Please, Anne, take a deep breath. And another. I need you to think clearly. My colleague is tracing your son-in-law right now, and he will most likely clear this up. But we do need to talk to you.’

‘I need to be with Jessica. You’re telling me he’s taken Daisy without telling her where he’s gone. He must have planned it. He can’t just take her away from her mother like that, without a word. There must be a law against it. Surely that’s kidnap?’

‘Can you tell me exactly what your movements were yesterday, please? I’d like you to think very carefully about what happened after you woke up. Did you see your daughter and her baby?’

Anne frowned. ‘No.’ She broke off and stared at Geraldine in bewilderment. ‘How can this have happened? My granddaughter can’t have just disappeared. Find her.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘There must be some mistake,’ she muttered. ‘This can’t be happening. Jessica’s not…’ She broke off, flustered.

‘Not what? What were you going to say about your daughter?’

‘What about my daughter?’

‘You started to say something about her,’ Geraldine prompted her gently. ‘What were you going to say?’

Anne sighed again. ‘You’ve met her, haven’t you? She has a beautiful soul, and she’s a wonderful mother, but she’s not… she’s not the most level-headed of people at the best of times. I thought she’d begun to settle down lately. For the past six months, since Daisy was born, my daughter’s been emotional. Very emotional. Very difficult. She’s always been highly strung and obstinate. I suppose we spoiled her. She’s so beautiful, and yet she went and married that man. Where’s the sense in that? My husband introduced her to so many nice young men –’

She gazed at Geraldine, seemingly pleading for reassurance.

‘I don’t think it’s uncommon for new mothers to be emotional,’ Geraldine replied. ‘Her hormones will have been –’

‘No, no,’ Anne interrupted her, and Geraldine let her talk. ‘I’m not talking about normal emotional changes in a new mother. I mean, she’s always been excitable. Even before she was pregnant, she was volatile. She used to burst into tears for no reason, any time anyone challenged her. The slightest thing seemed to set her off, sometimes nothing at all. She’s always been –’ she broke off and heaved a sigh. ‘She’s always been irrational. We hoped, my husband and I, that she might change once she was married, although we never thought that boy was right for her. She was such a lovely child – I mean, she still is lovely, she’s a really lovely person, but look, I don’t want to make this sound worse than it really is, but she’s a very emotional person. She becomes hysterical at the smallest provocation. She’s fragile, you see. We did our best, bringing her up, making sure she had the best of everything. And we never asked her to do anything that pushed her too far out of her comfort zone. She couldn’t cope, you see. We were always very careful with her. She can’t take any pressure. Some people are just like that. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. She wasn’t able to stay in a job because no one she worked for ever understood her. She can’t be corrected, you see. She just crumbles under any criticism. Jason knows what she’s like. How could he do this to her?’

She dropped her head in her hands and burst into tears. ‘Find her, please find her,’ she mumbled. ‘Oh God, what is he doing to her? She’s so vulnerable. This will drive her crazy. My daughter has never been a strong woman. She needs to be cared for and handled gently, not tormented.’

Geraldine was only slightly reassured that Anne did not appear worried that Jason might mistreat the baby. Anne’s concern was all for Jessica.

‘Of course, she was frightened,’ Eileen replied, when Geraldine reported her impression at a briefing on her return to the police station. ‘Her granddaughter’s disappeared. They must all be going out of their minds with worry. But from what you said, she was more concerned about her daughter than her missing granddaughter.’

‘That was certainly the impression I got.’

‘There are plenty of women who are scared of upsetting their precious children, especially teenage girls,’ a constable chipped in, and several of his male colleagues voiced their heartfelt agreement.

‘Jessica sounds like a very spoiled young woman,’ one of them commented tartly.

‘And you were speaking to her mother, Sarge. She’s hardly going to be an impartial judge of Jessica’s character.’

‘Let’s focus on what’s important here,’ Eileen snapped. ‘A baby has disappeared from her home. Missing Persons Unit are co-ordinating the search. The likelihood is that the father has taken the baby, but this investigation must be treated as urgent so we’re going to do whatever we can to assist the search. We can start by continuing to make every attempt to trace the father. Now, you all have plenty to do so let’s get back to work. Finding Jason Colman is a priority. As far as we can tell, Daisy’s grandfather has nothing to do with the infant’s disappearance, but please bear in mind that he is the leader of the local council, which means that he is not only a very unpopular figure, he’s an influential one too.’

They all understood the implications of Daisy’s family connections. The local press were already pernicious enough in their attacks on the police. They did not want the local council to whip up any more hostility towards them.

‘But,’ Eileen concluded, ‘as far as we are concerned, this has nothing to do with the councillor.’

‘I certainly can’t imagine Jessica’s parents would have anything to do with this,’ Geraldine said. ‘They seem to have idolised their daughter.’

The mood at the police station was troubled over the disappearance of the baby and the team set about their allotted tasks with a will. Feeling apprehensive, Geraldine went to question Jessica’s parents further. Anne opened the door again. She had clearly been crying. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, her cheeks blotchy, and her hair dishevelled.

‘My daughter’s suffering dreadfully,’ she said. ‘Something has to be done. My husband’s spoken to one of your senior colleagues.’

Geraldine had read the report of the meeting, and knew there was no need for her to speak to David in person. Nevertheless, she decided to see him. She had been criticised in the past for insisting on doing everything herself, and told that she ought to place more trust in the other members of her team. On this occasion, she deliberately ignored any risk that she might be criticised for disregarding her colleague’s report. The priority was to find the missing infant and return her to her mother as swiftly as possible. Every other consideration was insignificant by contrast. And, however unlikely, the chance that David Armstrong could somehow be implicated in his granddaughter’s disappearance could not be dismissed out of hand. He seemed to have garnered a few enemies in the course of his political career, and it was possible he was the target of a cruel attack on his family.

‘I just wanted to tie up a few loose ends,’ Geraldine said.

‘Oh, I’m sure he won’t mind,’ Anne replied. ‘Anything you can do to help find Daisy as quickly as you can…’ She gave a lame smile. ‘To be frank, we’re pleased at any interest the police show in finding her. The more you can do, the sooner our little girl will be returned to us.’ She broke off with a sob. ‘Where do you think she is?’ She reached out and put her hand on Geraldine’s arm, a ruby and diamond ring sparkling on her finger. ‘She will be all right, won’t she?’

‘We’re doing everything we can to return Daisy to her mother as quickly as possible,’ Geraldine replied.

This time Anne led Geraldine across a spacious hall into a large square kitchen that overlooked landscaped gardens at the back of the house. They sat down at a scrubbed wooden table where a stout middle-aged man gave a peremptory nod, as though giving Geraldine permission to speak.

‘How has your daughter taken to motherhood?’ Geraldine asked.

David’s florid face reddened more and his eyes hardened at the implied query over Jessica’s suitability for parenthood.

‘It’s only natural for a woman’s hormones to be all over the place for a few months,’ Anne replied before her husband had a chance to speak. ‘It wasn’t an easy birth, but Jessica’s over the moon at being a mother. She’s been devoted to the baby right from day one. We all are. She always wanted a daughter, didn’t she, David?’

Her husband grunted assent.

‘And the father?’

‘Jessica insists he’s been supportive,’ Anne replied tersely, dropping her gaze and staring at the table.

David’s grunt this time was less enthusiastic than before.

‘Was Jason happy about having a daughter?’ Geraldine persisted.

Anne’s reply was cagey. ‘Yes, I suppose so. He didn’t really say much, not to us anyway. He’s back at work, so we don’t see much of him. Not that we ever did,’ she added almost under her breath.

‘Thank goodness,’ David interjected. ‘That man was a waste of space. I could see that from the first moment I set eyes on him. A freeloader if ever I saw one.’

‘Didn’t you get on well with him?’

‘Yes, of course we all got on. Why wouldn’t we?’ David demanded.

He glared at Geraldine as though she had made an improper suggestion although, given his previous remarks, his claim that he was on good terms with their son-in-law did not exactly ring true.

‘And your daughter gave up her job when she had the baby?’

‘Yes. She told us she was planning to go back, but she never really settled in the world of work,’ Anne replied.

‘There was no need,’ David interrupted. ‘We have always been able to provide for her and she’s never wanted for anything. There was no call for her to work. We help them out.’ He muttered something about his son-in-law being nothing more than an estate agent. ‘And now she has Daisy…’

Hearing her granddaughter’s name, Anne broke down in tears.

‘Where is she?’ she cried out. ‘Find her for us. Oh please, just find her.’

‘For goodness sake, stop snivelling. How is that helping?’ her husband snapped. ‘Pull yourself together. And as for Jessica, her talk about going back to work was all nonsense. She never managed to hold down a job for longer than a few weeks, even after I’d pulled strings to get her a really nice position. She said she couldn’t cope with the pressure. It was better for all of us when she stopped that charade and admitted that working wasn’t for her. Stop blubbering, Anne. You’re not making this any easier for the rest of us.’

The rest of us being himself, Geraldine thought. Aloud she asked, ‘When did you last see Daisy?’

Anne blew her nose and raised her head, making a visible effort to control her sobbing.

‘Jessica brought her here on Thursday, around teatime.’

‘With Jason?’

‘No, he was working.’

‘And when did you last go round to Jessica’s house?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember. A few weeks ago, maybe more. She brings the baby to see us every week. Daisy knows us,’ she added with a tearful smile. ‘She –’

Geraldine interrupted her. ‘You have a key to Jessica’s house?’

‘Yes. And she has our key as well, in case we lock ourselves out. She drives by occasionally when we’re away, just to keep an eye on the place, and we do the same for her. We’ve always done that, ever since she married that man and moved out.’

With further assurances that the police were doing everything in their power to find the baby, Geraldine left. Nothing about Anne’s responses had struck her as strange. Clearly she wasn’t close to her son-in-law, but that wasn’t unusual. David also, although gruff and almost rude in his responses, was behaving as might be expected from a man deeply upset by his granddaughter’s disappearance. The visit had thrown up no new lines of enquiry, although it had established that the Armstrongs were not fond of their son-in-law. There was nothing more Geraldine could do to help so she went home, feeling frustrated. They could only wait for the results of the search for the father, who must surely be the key to the mystery. It could not be a coincidence that the baby had disappeared just when her father went away. The fact that no one had been able to contact him, or establish his whereabouts, was telling, as was the fact that his mobile phone had somehow been disabled and was impossible to trace.

Most of the team subscribed to the theory that Jason hadn’t gone to a stag party at all, but had deserted his overly emotional wife, taking their baby with him.

‘There’s probably another woman involved,’ Eileen muttered darkly. ‘There usually is.’

‘Or a man,’ someone added.