CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

Back at the station, Kate went to check if there were any messages from forensics about the chapel.

Clive flashed a cheery grin and began to root around in the masses of untidy paperwork on his desk. He located the correct memo sheet in just a few seconds, probably quicker than the Superintendent’s Gruppenfuhrer Celia could with all her neat and efficient files. ‘The Soco rang us from the scene, Guv. She reckoned there were enough bodily fluids floating around to crash their computer’s DNA file, but unfortunately the tests take time. It will be over a week before we get the results.’

‘Sod it! How about prints?’

‘A shed load. And she’ll stick them on the database as soon as she gets back to the lab. They’ll come up instantly if they get any matches.’

‘That sounds a bit more promising. Keep me posted, will you?’

Kate went back to her office and saw Jon stand up from his desk and walk across to join her. ‘Just the man. I was wondering if we’ve ever bumped into young Nicholas Barley before, in an official capacity.’

‘He’s had his collar felt a few times.’ said Jon. ‘Unfortunately, it was nothing bad enough to warrant taking his dabs.’

‘No matter, we’ll take them anyway.’

‘I’ll get that sorted.’ said Jon. ‘By the way, can I run something past you, Guv?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Do you think Toni Clarkson would be up to going to the old chapel, to see if she remembers it as the place where the so-called party was held?’

Kate nodded. ‘I think she’s got the balls, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do. Shall I go over to the hospital and ask her?’

Kate shook her head. ‘No offence, but why not ring Harlan Marsh nick and get Gary Pritchard to do it. He seems to have a way with that kid.’

‘Good point. I’ll contact him. And I’ll ring that friend of Ethan’s too.’

Kate walked back out to the CID room and saw both Rosie and Scott gloomily looking at computer print-outs. ‘I guess from your faces, that we’ve nothing more on Emily?’

‘Sorry, Guv,’ Rosie looked up. ‘We are running out of avenues to explore.’

‘I’m beginning to wonder if that drug messed with Toni’s head.’ Scott pulled a face. ‘We could be hunting a hallucination.’

‘We can’t rule that out, but the kid is recalling more every time we speak to her.’ Kate frowned. ‘I’m sure she exists, so.., sorry guys, keep looking.’

Jon joined them, ‘Ethan’s friend isn’t answering his mobile, so I’ve left a message on voice-mail. Let’s hope he gets back to us.’

‘And Gary?’

‘He’s on his way to the hospital, ma’am, and he was certain that he could get her to visit the chapel.’

‘Excellent. We’ll meet him there, and then go back to the chapel with the Clarkson girl. If she recognises that cellar, that will tell us something definite. And we’ll talk to Toni in a little more detail about ‘Emily’.’ Kate straightened up. ‘Right, time to move. Rosie, you check our own records and see if we have anything logged here in Saltfleet about illicit parties or drinking clubs. Keep me updated on anything you unearth, and Scott, keep digging regarding mispers, and listen out for this call from Ethan Barley’s friend. Get as much as you can from him about the Emily that he chatted up in the pub, okay?’

Scott nodded. ‘Wilco.’

‘Then go to it, we have to find out what happened to Toni Clarkson, and it’s imperative that we know if there is another girl missing. We need something to corroborate Toni’s story about that beautiful girl with the long dark hair.’

 

‘You drive.’ Kate threw Jon her keys. ‘My phone’s ringing.’

She pulled her mobile from her bag and walked around to the passenger door.

‘DCI Reynard? I need to understand something.’

It took her a moment to recognise Ethan Barley. ‘Sure, Ethan, fire away.’

‘Can you assure me that it really would help my brother if he spoke to you? I mean, it’s not some kind of trick on your part, is it? I know a bit about entrapment and shit like that. It does happen, so don’t tell me otherwise.’

‘I wouldn’t lie to you, Ethan. That sort of thing does go on, but not within my team, okay? If Nicholas knows something, he comes to us and he offers that information freely, it will go well for him. Likewise, if he knows something, and conceals that from me, I’ll hit him harder than a speeding lorry. Is that clear?’

For a moment she thought he had rung off, then he said, ‘Then I think he needs to talk to you.’

‘If he needs a bit of persuasion, Ethan, you can tell him we have lifted an awful lot of fingerprints from that cellar. If his are there, on a bottle maybe, and he denies knowing about the party, well, I guess your father won’t be too pleased when he sees me snap those cuffs around Baby’s skinny wrists.’ There was another silence, so she added. ‘We should get the prints back later today. Comparisons don’t take long, so as soon as we take Nicholas’s dabs, well, it could be curtains, couldn’t it?’

‘I’ll bring him down.’ Ethan sounded scared.

‘Two hours from now, Ethan, and I’ll meet you at the front desk. Okay?’

‘Yeah, okay. Oh, and forget the girl my friend chatted up, I’ve just heard from him and she was a spiky-haired blonde.’

The line went dead, and Kate closed her phone. ‘Well, I think from that conversation, we can assume that with a little arm twisting from his big brother, young Nicholas is about to get an attack of verbal diarrhoea.’

‘Perfect.’ Jon smiled. ‘That could save us a lot of leg work.’

‘And if Toni recognises the crypt, then everything could fall into place pretty quickly.’ Her voice sounded confident, but they both knew that in the real world, things rarely happened quite so conveniently.

 

Jon managed to talk the Clarkson’s into waiting in their BMW, while Toni was shown the chapel. They all knew that she would be far happier if her parents were not hanging onto every word she said.

As he led her along the gravel path around the old chapel, he felt Toni tensing up and her pace slow a little more with every step. ‘You’ve nothing to fear, Toni.’ He said gently. ‘Just tell us whether or not you recognise the cellar, and then we’ll get you out of there in a flash, I promise.’

Toni held his arm a little tighter, then winced, as the pain from her ribs intensified. ‘I hate not being able to remember everything.’ She almost spat the words out. ‘It’s so scary. I mean, those freaky perverts could have done anything, and I wouldn’t…’

‘But they didn’t, Toni, and you have to hold on to that.’ Jon stopped, took the girl by the shoulders and looked her full in the eyes. ‘Okay, so you were hurt, and sure, that’s bad enough, but they never sexually assaulted you, and you can thank your lucky stars for that fact.’

She nodded, reluctantly said, ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ then walked to the top of the flight of steps and looked down. ‘Okay, let’s get this over with.’ With a little shiver she stepped hesitantly down the stone stairs, touching the wall tentatively with her fingertips like a blind woman reading Braille.

At the bottom Gary waited, his hand held out to her, as Jon and Kate carefully followed her down.

‘Good lass. Well done.’ said Gary softly. ‘Just a quick look round, and then we’ll get you on your way home, okay?’

Toni stood at the entrance to the crypt and stared about her. Her mouth was slightly open and her nose was wrinkled as the smell of the place suddenly hit her. ‘No, this wasn’t it.’ She gagged on her words. ‘This smells even worse than the cabbages, this stinks like piss.’

‘Sadly, my little friend, it probably is piss.’ said Gary. ‘And a few other unmentionable substances.’

‘Are you sure, Toni?’ Disappointment edged Kate’s words.

‘Yes, this is bigger, and well, I’d know this was part of an old church. Wherever I was before..,’ the girl gave an involuntary shiver, ‘…it was a proper cellar, you know? Like there was old stuff around. Boxes and cases; that sort of thing.’

‘Is there anything that you see here, that reminds you of where you were taken?’ asked Gary carefully.

The girl walked further in, then stopped and looked around her. Slowly she shook her head. ‘There were bottles with candles stuck in them, like those.’ She pointed to a stone shelf with a row of empty wine bottles with burnt down candle stubs in their necks stacked along it. Suddenly she walked towards them, and picked one up. ‘Emily showed me this label! Look! She thought it was funny, and we laughed at it.’

Jon grimaced at the sound of the name Emily being uttered so casually. ‘Put it down, please, Toni. We may need to check whose prints are on it. Are you saying you were offered the same type of wine?’

She nodded furiously. ‘I wouldn’t forget that name, would I?’

They leaned closer and saw the label. Old Tart.

‘And there was one called Old Git’. We laughed at that too.’ Toni added.

Kate peered at the label then looked at Gary. ‘For people who buy the label, not the wine, I suppose.’

‘Actually they are deceptively good wines, ma’am. One’s a Sauvignon blanc and Terret, the other’s a Grenache/Syrah.’

‘Sorry, I had no idea that you were such a connoisseur. Are they hard to find?’

‘No, ma’am, I’m afraid supermarkets stock them.’

‘They would, wouldn’t they?’ Kate muttered.

‘Can I go home now? This minging place is making me want to hoop up.’

Kate put an arm around Toni’s slender shoulder and smiled at her. ‘Of course. And believe me; I feel exactly the same. Thank you, Toni, you’ve really helped us.’

‘Have you found Emily yet?’

Kate’s smile faded and she looked across to Jon. ‘Not yet. But when you’ve settled in at home, we really need to talk to you some more, about Emily.’

‘Sure.’ The girl’s shoulder’s dropped a little. ‘Although I don’t know what else to tell you, it’s all so fuzzy.’

Jon tried to look positive. ‘Hey, you just remembered laughing over the wine labels, I’m sure other things will start to come back to you.’

‘Maybe.’ She gave a sideways glance towards the doorway, where her father was now anxiously standing, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. ‘I hope so, because Emily was really nice.’

 

Before they left, Kate needed to call the station, leaving Jon to watch as the BMW, closely followed by Gary’s little Suzuki Vitara, pulled out of the chapel car park.

He was gutted that Toni hadn’t fingered the place as the one from which she and Emily had been taken, but he could only hope that forensics would come up with something to help them trace the organisers of the club. The thought of men ready and willing to use Rohypnol-type drugs on kids made him feel physically sick.

He slipped behind the wheel of the car, started the engine and waited for Kate, who was still wandering around trying to access the best of a weak signal reception.

He yawned, tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, and then gave a grunt.

The vision of a high tunnel stretched out before him, and just as quickly, it disappeared. Jon shook his head. Tunnels? He sighed, then raised the handbrake and eased the car around so that it was facing down the drive towards the road. Several times over the last few days he’d seen the same thing. Then in an instant it had gone. Someone was trying to show him something, but what?

Jon looked up and saw Kate hurrying across the grass towards him, skirting moss covered gravestones and gnarled, weather-beaten shrubby bushes. She got in and clicked in her seat belt. ‘Rosie has found two incidents reported in the last few months about youngsters attending underground parties and finishing up the worse for wear.’

‘Right, and they were local?’

‘Local kids, but the venues were out of town. That’s all she knows. She’s still digging. And right now, we need to go interview the Barley boys, so put your foot down, Jensen. We’re not sight-seeing and we haven’t got all bloody day.’