Kate and Hank had split up. He went off to secure a copy of the email and to view and take a copy of the day’s CCTV. It was crucial to get a handle on the cab driver who’d driven Aaron to Settle railway station. Kate followed Pearson through the building to the East Wing. A sweeping stone staircase, the treads worn from generations of footfall, took them to the second floor. The matron turned right, leading Kate along a wide corridor past door after door of student accommodation.
It was a toss-up as to which one of them was the most distressed.
Acting in loco parentis, the school owed a duty of care to all boarders. If word got out that the head or key staff were failing to provide an appropriate level of security for the children in their care, parents would be falling over themselves to remove their offspring and recoup the extortionate fees they had paid upfront.
Trying to push away the thought that JC had got to Aaron first, Kate wondered where all the children were. There was the odd snippet of conversation behind closed doors, the sound of a violin being played, but the corridor was deathly quiet otherwise, not a child in sight. Pearson stopped walking, knocked twice on an ornate mahogany door, then pushed it ajar, calling out to see if the occupants were decent.
The sing-song chorus of ‘Yes, Mrs Pearson’ came from inside.
She opened the door to reveal a four-bedded, wood-panelled room with huge floor-to-ceiling windows. Each bed had a set of drawers on one side, a small bedside table on the other and large blanket box at the foot for storage.
Three youngsters were sitting on the floor playing cards.
‘Boys, could you leave us for a moment?’ Obediently, they got up. ‘Don’t go far, this lady is a detective. She may need to talk to you. Wait in the hallway.’ Without questioning why, the boys moved past Kate, one of them smiling at her, clearly intrigued and more than a touch excited that he’d be talking to police.
Kate worked quickly, searching the drawers first, removing each one completely, checking that nothing was taped to the underside or around the edges. The deep bottom drawer held sports gear, cricket whites, gym clothing. The next, school uniform on one side, ordinary clothing on the other. The top drawer, pyjamas on the right, socks and underwear on the left. She’d searched a lot of boys’ bedrooms in her time – some she wished she hadn’t – but this was a new experience.
Everything was clean, pressed, neatly stacked.
Replacing the drawers, Kate turned her attention to the bedside table. Underneath was a stack of textbooks on a variety of subjects. She flicked through each one, fanning the pages, giving them a shake to see if anything fell out.
Nothing did.
She did the same to a neat stack of notebooks she found in the table drawer. Placing them to one side, she tipped the rest of the contents out onto the bed, pausing to study an academic timetable for a long moment. The school day at boarding school was a damned sight longer than it was at a conventional school, she noticed. Adding this to the pile of notebooks, Kate turned to Aaron’s pencil case, which revealed the usual paraphernalia, nothing she didn’t expect to find in there.
Returning the drawer to its casing, she lifted the lid on the blanket chest at the foot of the bed, finding that it held everything else: personal reading matter, board games, a pair of well-worn boxing gloves, an ancient Swiss Army knife. Athletics medals too. There were pastels and artist’s sketch pads, all of which were full, a mixture of still life, landscapes and portraits – one self-portrait and another of the boy who’d smiled at her when he left the room a moment ago.
Aaron, it seemed, was talented and thriving at Haltonghyll.
Comforted by the fact that he had mates and appeared to be having fun – and, more importantly, that he was alive that morning – Kate got down on her hands and knees to look under his bed. She found a suitcase there. Hoping it would reveal a hidden gem, she pulled it out. Nothing inside. Disappointed, she shoved it away and stood up, looking around the room. There was something odd here.
It took her a moment to realise what it was.
She turned to face Pearson, pointing at the items she’d placed on the bed. ‘I’m going to have to take these.’ She paused. ‘Aaron’s section of the room appears bland compared to his peers. There’s a distinct lack of junk. The other beds are surrounded with personal stuff, including family photographs, some taken here, others at home. There’s no iPad, laptop or mobile phone, all of which I presume Aaron owned.’
‘I imagine he took them with him. Children, even those in our care, can’t do without technology.’ Clearly, she didn’t approve.
‘Can you see anything that’s missing?’
Pearson took a cursory glance around Aaron’s bed. ‘I don’t think so.’
Kate held on to her irritation. ‘Please, look carefully.’
Pearson eyed the bed and surrounding area, pausing on his bedside table. ‘Actually, yes. Aaron had a small, framed photograph of his mother. It sat there beside the lamp . . .’ Her voice faded out of Kate’s head, replaced by her own. She knew then that the boy wasn’t planning to return.