Tuesday 23 October, 8.30 a.m.
Korpanski caught up with her as she was exiting the car park. He took in her car and grinned. ‘Not on the bike then, Jo?’
She glared at him. ‘Don’t push your luck, Korpanski.’
He raised his eyebrows. And waited, knowing the storm would soon break.
It did. ‘I’m actually banned from cycling by my beloved husband,’ she said. ‘He’s all but locked it away.’
Wisely Korpanski still said nothing. But he smirked.
‘Actually,’ she said as they headed across the car park towards the entrance to the station, ‘I fell off on my way home last night.’
‘Ah.’
‘Grazed knees and the tiniest bump on my head,’ she confessed.
And Korpanski couldn’t stop the guffaw that opened his mouth and bellowed right across the yard. And after a minute or two she joined him, adding, ‘Matthew wasn’t impressed.’
Still laughing, they entered the station, but were greeted with a shake of the head from the desk sergeant. She approached him. ‘Can you get in touch with Ryland’s Residential Home and ask them to email over a photograph of our missing man, please?’
‘Consider it done.’
Hearing this, Korpanski had been about to tease her: Not even found the teddy bear? It had been on his lips but, after one look at her face, he decided not to risk it, instead following her into their office.
She plonked herself down on the swivel chair in front of her desk and prepared to log on to the computer. ‘I wish it was men who had babies,’ she grumbled. ‘They wouldn’t be saying …’ she scrabbled the air, ‘it’s just for a few months. They’d …’
Korpanski burst out laughing. ‘You look so funny, Jo.’
She jabbed at a few keys, something like a glare beaming out of the stormy eyes.
While Korpanski waited for the storm to pass.
Unpredictable as ever, it didn’t take long. She looked at him ruefully. ‘Scooting through a puddle and the next thing I knew I was lying face down on the pavement.’
‘Shit, Jo,’ he said. Then he caught her eyes and clamped his mouth together. A little squall was still present.
‘Don’t you start,’ she warned. ‘Just don’t bloody well start, Korpanski. The baby is fine. Matthew, however, is not. He practically had a nervous breakdown when I got in with my front wheel buckled. He hasn’t stopped making a fuss about it ever since. Honestly. He nearly wheeled me all the way to the hospital to insist on a total body scan.’
Korpanski said nothing but continued to watch her, very guarded now. And something unexpected, something he’d never thought he would feel so strongly. Not for his DI. He felt protective.
‘That’s not all,’ she said, avoiding his eyes.
He came up behind her and put a friendly hand on her shoulder. ‘Let me guess,’ he said, breathing in a scent of shampoo, lemons and soap. ‘He wants you to give up front-line policing.’
She nodded.
‘It’s policy anyway, Jo.’
She nodded again. ‘I know, but …’
And then she fixed her mind on the job in hand. ‘I guess I’d better get on with the search for my old man.’
‘Yeah.’
She began by checking with the uniformed team who had been detailed to search Ryland’s and its surrounds. And the answer was still a negative.
‘He’s not turned up?’ Joanna was incredulous. ‘Not alive or dead?’
‘No, Jo.’
‘Any sign of him? Slippers? Footmarks?’
PC Paul Ruthin shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
She still felt this investigation was not exactly challenging. But answers were eluding her. An old man wanders away from a residential home. Police can’t find him.
Hardly headline news. But all the more irritating for its very triviality.
But whatever the case, it was her case. A professional is a professional. Pregnant or not, she was an officer of Her Majesty’s Police Force. It was up to her to work through it until it reached its conclusion. And the next step was to escalate the search, call a briefing and address the roomful of three detectives and four uniformed guys, reflecting that a few years ago there would have been double this number.
And in her opinion Mr Foster’s fate would be known.
Looking at her team she sensed they felt the same as her, that this was a minor case which would be wound up by teatime.
Much of a briefing consists of going over the same facts again and again, searching for some explanation while a physical search is being carried out behind the scenes.
‘So,’ she began, ‘on the surface I agree with you. A minor case but puzzling too and with some anomalies.’ She pinned the photograph emailed from Ryland’s and took a good look at the missing man’s face. Zachary Foster looked every single minute of his ninety-six years. His expression was earnest, blue eyes hooded by sagging skin. His face was thin. His eyes, a pale, icy blue, looked confused and appealed for understanding. The faintest hint of a smile played around his lips; the smile wasn’t a confident one, but ingratiating. He looked vulnerable, lines of worry creasing his cheeks. His hair was, as described by Sandie Golding, sparse and white. You could see the shape of his head.
She turned away from him, feeling she was failing to respond to his mute appeal. His obvious vulnerability made her feel even worse for failing to find him.
She turned back to her team of officers, using the whiteboard to feed them the facts.
‘Zachary Foster. Age: ninety-six. Wearing striped pyjamas, brown slippers and an overcoat. Resident of Ryland’s Residential Home for the last eighteen months. Prior to that he lived at number seventeen Leonard Street, Leek. PC Jason Spark has visited that address but the current owner, a Mrs Janet Baldwin, hasn’t seen anyone answering to this description in the vicinity. Mr Foster was born in that house and lived there with his mother who died many years ago. He never married and had no children. There are no close relatives.’
Joanna turned her attention to the street map of Leek and the wider surrounds. Reservoirs, moorlands, peaks and climbs, but her eyes always returned to the town with its busy, cramped streets. She frowned. Leek was nothing if not congested. And congested meant many pairs of eyes. So where was he, this one old man who had so far evaded discovery?
She picked up. ‘According to Ryland’s staff, Mr Foster’s mobility was limited, but in spite of that an intensive search of the immediate area has failed to find him. And so …’ she heaved in a sigh, ‘… we must escalate the search.’ She paused before adding, ‘The likelihood is that we find a body. The weather has been cold.’
She paused. A briefing is an ideal opportunity to a) review a case and b) brainstorm. But as Joanna scanned the room she couldn’t see any bright sparks of ideas. The faces looked as uninspired as she was by the review.
So after a brief pause she continued, ‘Mr Foster suffers from dementia and had a stroke two years ago which affected his mobility and his speech. He drags his foot and slurs his words. Which makes it all the more extraordinary that we haven’t found him – yet.’
Now she saw that a few members of her team were frowning.
‘There are some troubling accounts of his disappearance. Let’s look closely at the staff of Ryland’s who were supposed to be looking after him. One qualified nurse and two health-care assistants.’ She turned back to the board and wrote:
Night Sister Joan Arkwright and two health-care assistants, Susie Trent and Amelia Boden.
‘They initially claimed that he was last seen around two a.m. by the night staff. I’ll come back to that. They said that Mr Foster appeared asleep.
‘He was officially noted missing at around seven a.m. by the night staff. I said I’d come back to the claimed observation at two a.m. This turned out to be not quite so. Ms Trent actually did not see our missing man at two a.m. She stood in the doorway.’ She returned to a room plan she’d drawn earlier. ‘Mr Dean, the resident who shared a room with our missing man, has a bed that is clearly visible from the doorway, but Mr Foster’s is concealed by an en suite bathroom. So in fact the last sighting of Mr Foster was at around nine p.m. when he was given his night sedation.’
She searched the room for inspiration and found none, so continued. ‘Mr Foster has never absconded before nor shown any desire to escape the residential home.’
She scanned the blank faces. ‘So you might want to ask yourselves if anything had triggered this disappearance?’
Again there were more expressions of puzzlement than of clarity or inspiration.
She helped them out. ‘It transpires that he had appeared upset lately as a teddy bear his mother had given him – and to which he was very attached – had been lost.’
She gritted her teeth, ignoring the looks, partly puzzled, partly amused which passed between them, before turning back to the board to draw up a list of checks.
‘So, quite apart from the fact that we don’t know when he left, there is the point that none of the three night staff witnessed his flight, plus we still don’t know how Mr Foster made his escape. There are five potential exit points. The front and back doors are deadlocked and the keys removed. I’ve studied the two fire exits and am satisfied that he didn’t leave through either of these. Which leaves the French doors exiting the day room. All the doors are apparently locked and bolted when the staff working the evening shift leave the premises at around nine p.m.’
Again she listed them on the board.
Jubilee Watkins
Ned Sheringham
Shawna Wilson
‘After the two o’clock round, Susie Trent went outside for a smoke and insists the French windows in the day room were locked and bolted when she exited, and that she secured them when she came back in. PC Bridget Anderton and myself are returning to Ryland’s later today and will be checking up on this. My theory is that Ms Trent found the doors unlocked and unbolted and, believing the night sister, Joan Arkwright, forgot to secure the doors, is covering for her out of loyalty. It seems the most logical explanation.’ She tried to bring some levity into the room. ‘Unless, that is, our man managed to exit through a locked and bolted door and secure it similarly behind him.’
It raised a couple of very weak smiles.
‘There is no CCTV in Ryland’s, but there are plenty scattered around the town. So far there have been no sightings.’ She ploughed on. ‘A thorough search of the premises and surrounds has so far shown no sightings either.’
She stood still for a moment, paralysed by this one odd fact which, added to the others, seemed impossible. No one had seen him?
She could see her puzzlement reflected in her team as she wound up. ‘I don’t need to tell you that the weather has hovered just above freezing for the last two nights and our man was wearing pyjamas, slippers and an overcoat.’
More scribbling and she recalled Matthew’s words of warning. ‘Elderly people who have hypothermia sometimes are not dead but in a state of suspended animation, so if you do find him make sure a doctor examines him.’
Korpanski was standing at the back of the room, watching, with some sympathy. She smiled at him, which he returned – with interest – in the form of a wide, encouraging grin. But she was aware that she was stumbling over something more than just the strange facts of the case. She didn’t and couldn’t possibly understand what this word dementia meant. She’d heard it often. But what did it actually mean? Had he simply wandered off to look for this ‘teddy bear’? Right under everyone’s nose? Creeping down the stairs without anyone hearing or seeing? Maybe Matthew would be able to explain. Sometimes it was very useful to have a medic for a husband.
She wound up the briefing. ‘Obviously we want to find him alive but at the same time the likelihood is, considering the weather and the fact that he was elderly and confused, that what we will find will be Mr Foster’s body.’
Grave faces nodded back at her.
‘The next stage will be to go public, put his photograph around on social media as well as speaking to people in the town. We can sift through CCTV to try and ascertain which direction he left in. Rope in the ever vigilant and frequently misleading Joe Public …’ sniggers all round, ‘… and sift through all the detritus, false sightings, misleading information that involving vox populi or rather mens populi will inevitably drag in.’
She glanced at Mike, still standing at the back of the room. Even from that distance she could read humour in the dark eyes. He was mocking her, putting his hand over his belly and grinning. One day in the future he would drag this humiliating briefing up and they would laugh about the day she had been sent out to search for a demented old man who was himself on a confused quest for a long-lost toy. ‘So … any questions?’
PC Gilbert Young, a balding, shaven-headed constable who had recently moved from Stoke, put his hand up. ‘What do we know about this home?’
She corrected him. ‘Ryland’s actually calls itself a residential home. It’s been open for twelve years and in general it has good reviews. All four and five stars, a big band of happy relatives, praise for the humanity of the care assistants and their bosses. The manager is Sandie Golding and the matron Matilda Warrender. The owner is a Mr Sadiq Haldar but I don’t think he has much to do with the actual running of Ryland’s. I’ve yet to interview the matron. DC King has searched the home through the PNC. Nothing. We’ve never been summoned there before and there have, apparently, been no problems. Just an annual clear fire inspection.’
She looked around the room. ‘PC Anderton and myself will be returning to Ryland’s and interviewing more of the staff. In the meantime, go out and find him. Please?’
Korpanski watched her, deep in thought. Some women look beautiful when they’re pregnant. Skin, hair, and that joyful expression on their faces that they are preparing to meet the child they already half know but have only seen in strange, ultrasound images. Fran had been like that. Beautiful.
He wouldn’t exactly call Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy beautiful in her pregnant state. There was a sense of irritation, of frustration in her manner, but something had changed in her. It just took a little longer to see it. She had softened. The inspector he had first met all those years ago had been spiky, defensive, determined to prove herself superior. A lot of that attitude had gradually been shed like the scales of a snake or a lizard when it has outgrown its skin. Maybe that was what had happened. DI Joanna Piercy had become Mrs Matthew Levin. And as such had outgrown her skin. As he stood and watched her he also acknowledged his own part in the conflict; resentful at having a female inspector to work under, he had been angry and obstructive. Not any more.
As the officers filed out he walked towards her to stand by her side and, like her, studied the map. ‘Any ideas, Mike?’
Her finger trailed to the northeast moorland, the A53, and the road which eventually reached the spa town of Buxton.
‘That,’ she said, ‘is my fear. If he’s somewhere out there we might never find him.’
‘You can take the helicopter out.’
‘For now,’ she said, ‘we’ll focus on the town. But then …’
She trailed her finger to the left of the A53. Just beyond Blackshaw Moor was Tittesworth Reservoir and to the west of that, Rudyard Lake. Her finger moved down the map, following the road that led towards the Potteries. She moved her finger again to trace the A520 which threaded through Cheddleton, crossing the Caldon Canal and finally reaching Stone. And then her finger touched the A523 which led south-east towards Ashbourne.
‘He wouldn’t have got that far, Jo,’ he said.
‘No. For my money he is still here.’ She touched the town map and the maze of streets.
‘But the thing that puzzles me, Mike, is …’ She turned around, her face near his. ‘People here are nosey,’ she said. ‘They know their neighbours and aren’t shy of coming forward and intervening. If they saw a frail old man dressed in slippers and pyjamas, even covered up with an overcoat, not one of them wouldn’t ring the police.’
Korpanski stayed silent and she carried on, her eyes trained on her sergeant’s face for some hint of inspiration. ‘The alternative is that he didn’t walk at all.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re implying, Jo.’ His features were as blunt as his response.
‘What if someone has picked him up, Mike?’
‘Why? Why would they do that? And why wouldn’t they bring him in or at least return him to the residential home?’
‘He might not be able to give them his address.’
‘In which case they would have brought him here, wouldn’t they?’
And there she was stumped and merely shrugged. ‘Search me,’ she said. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
She dropped into her seat. Ryland’s Residential Home had been practically taken apart. He wasn’t there. She had seven officers searching through the town, focusing on the little spots one finds in even the most densely populated conurbations, the places where rubbish is thrown, the dusty attics and damp cellars of derelict buildings. Neglected backyards. Even the graveyard. They had combed the area and would continue to do so. But they were all coming to the same conclusion. He was not within two miles of the home unless … Her finger returned to the southern aspect of Tittesworth Reservoir. Mike put a restraining hand on her shoulder. ‘You know as well as I do, Jo. Bodies float unless they are weighted down.’ Which set her mind tracking along another course. Would the ninety-six-year-old have had the cunning to escape from the home, find his way to the reservoir and commit suicide by filling his pockets with rocks?
‘Maybe we should call in the frogmen.’