Author: Chris Collett
Category: Mystery
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As Mariner returned to the office, a buzz sounded and the top of a shaven head filled a segment of the split-screen CCTV.
‘That’s Josh’s dad,’ said Samantha. ‘All the nursery parents will be here to fetch their children in the next hour or so. We’ve still got quite a few left.’
Shit. This was going to be a logistical nightmare. Ideally Mariner would want to keep everyone at the scene to be interviewed as potential witnesses, but if they did that, the place would be packed with agitated parents and kids.
‘Okay, as long as you’re certain these are parents you know, you can let them go, but PC Mann will screen them and take details before they leave. We’ll need to talk to them later. Is there somewhere he can do that?’ The hall would be far too cramped.
‘The room across the hall there is empty at this time of day.’ Samantha opened the door opposite onto what looked like a tiny classroom.
‘That’ll be fine,’ said Mariner. He turned back to Glover. ‘When you’ve instructed uniform, stay here by the front door with Mann, to supervise people going in and out.’
‘How much do we tell them about what’s going on, boss?’ Mann wondered.
Mariner thought about that. Ordinarily in an investigation you’d want to keep everything under wraps to avoid creating panic, but in this case they needed as many pairs of ears and eyes working for them as possible. ‘Everything,’ he said. ‘They’ve probably seen the cars and they’ll certainly notice the uniforms. And we need them working with us. Someone might have noticed someone or something when they dropped their child off this morning.’
The buzzer sounded again, more insistently and an impatient face turned towards the camera.
‘You know him well?’ Mariner checked with Samantha.
‘Josh has been here since he was a baby.’
‘Okay, you can let him in.’
Samantha pushed the button on the telephone intercom and the shaved head bobbed and disappeared from the screen as, behind them, the main door opened and Josh’s father stepped in. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked Samantha, seeing that clearly everything wasn’t.
‘Fine,’ Samantha smiled weakly.
PC Mann stepped forward. ‘Would you like to come in here a moment, sir?’
‘What about anyone else who’s been in and out this afternoon?’ Mariner directed his question at Samantha.
‘I’ll have to talk to the girls in all the rooms to find out who they’ve let in.’
‘DC Glover will do that,’ said Mariner. Taking his cue, Glover came across from where he was standing. ‘Interview separately and in isolation if you can,’ Mariner told him. ‘Come back to me if we get anything worthwhile.’ He turned back to Samantha. ‘We’ll then need a list of addresses and contact details to go with the names so that we can get in touch with anyone we know has been here this afternoon.’
Mariner turned his attention back to the screen. ‘The CCTV covers the whole nursery?’
‘It moves from room to room automatically, but it hasn’t been working very well.’
‘Are the images stored?’
‘Only for about ten minutes, it’s just a monitoring system.’
Shame.
‘Who was it who saw the person who took Jessica?’ Mariner asked.
‘The girls in the crèche. It’s been a busy day, so there’s one permanent member of staff, Christie, and two agency staff, Leanne and Kam.’
‘How long has Christie been with you?’
‘About eight months.’
‘That’s permanent?’
‘In child care, yes. A lot of the girls start young and then leave young to have their own babies, or move to other settings.’
‘Have Kam and Leanne worked for you before?’ Mariner was wondering about an inside job.
‘They’ve worked in the nursery but not in the crèche, so they’re not so familiar with the procedures in there. But it’s a reliable agency. They’ve supplied us for years.’
‘And they’re the only people to have been in that room this afternoon?’
‘Apart from the parents who have already been to collect their children,’ Samantha said. ‘The hours vary but the girls will be able to tell you more.’ She was fidgety now, wanting them to move on before her efficiency was further called into question.
‘Right,’ Mariner stood up. ‘We’ll speak to them next.’
‘They’ve still got children down there. Is it all right if you talk to them in the room?’
It wasn’t ideal. Ideally Mariner would have wanted to interview the girls separately and in the proper conditions, to get admissible witness statements, but they would have to make the best of it with preliminary interviews.
‘I don’t see why not,’ he said. It was a decision Mariner would regret within minutes. Outside the confines of the office, they crossed the hall, following it round alongside the staircase to a room at the back of the building. Samantha hesitated outside the door.
‘Can you be gentle with them? Leanne especially, well, she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean.’
‘And she’s responsible for looking after young children?’
Samantha shrugged. ‘There probably wasn’t much else in the way of careers options.’ This afternoon was turning out to be a revelation. Allowing Mariner to absorb that fact, Samantha pushed open a door panelled with safety glass onto a twelve-by-fifteen playroom, children’s artwork on the walls and the partially carpeted floor littered with fluorescent plastic toys. An alcove off to the left opened into a bathroom with fixtures and fittings in miniature. Going in, Mariner and Knox had to dodge a path through painted paper leaves that dangled from the ceiling. A baby lay on the carpet happily batting at an arc of dangling rattles, but what first assaulted Mariner’s senses was the high-decibel wailing of the second small child, which seemed to reverberate back at them off the walls. The two young women in the room seemed oblivious, engaged as they were in half-heartedly tidying up, picking up toys from the floor and tossing them into plastic crates.
‘This is Leanne and Kam,’ Samantha said, by way of a crude introduction, raising her voice above the sound of the screaming baby. The women looked up at mention of their names. ‘Girls, this is the police. They need to talk to you.’
Samantha had referred to them as ‘girls’ and that was exactly right. They looked barely old enough to take care of themselves let alone other people’s children. And both of them looked decidedly wary of their visitors.
‘What about the third girl?’ Mariner asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘You mentioned Christie?’
‘Oh, she’s upstairs in the toddler room with one of the older children,’ said Samantha. ‘She wasn’t here when—’
‘Okay.’
‘Do you mind?’ Kam, an Asian girl with wide heavy-framed glasses, gestured towards the bawling infant, who up until now had been summarily ignored.
‘No, please do,’ said Mariner; anything to stop the awful racket. A pang of anxiety tweaked at him as he thought of what could be to come. He’d only been in here half a minute and already it was getting on his nerves. But maybe it was different when it was your own child. He hoped so. He watched as Kam eased the child out of its bobbing canvas seat, and grabbing a tissue, expertly wiped the snot and tears from its face in one stroke. The yelling diminished to a whimper, but the baby’s face remained contorted with displeasure. Tony Knox stepped forward and offered a finger, which the child grabbed, dragging Knox’s whole hand up towards its mouth.
‘How old is she?’ Knox asked. So it was a girl. Mariner was impressed that Tony Knox could identify the gender so quickly, given that she was wearing neither giveaway pink nor blue. The huge dark eyes gazing gravely at them from the pale face could have belonged to either.
‘She’s about three months, I think,’ Kam told him, using her free hand to nudge her glasses higher up her nose. ‘Though she’s quite small for her age.’
‘It’s a long d
ay for her,’ Knox gave voice to Mariner’s thoughts.
Kam rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me about it. She hasn’t been too thrilled, either. I think she’s teething because her tummy’s been upset all day. I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve had to change her. She’ll be glad to see her mummy again.’ Talking about the baby seemed to relax Kam a little, though Mariner sensed she was glad to have the distraction of the child.
While they’d been focusing on the baby, Samantha had grouped some child-sized plastic chairs into a semi-circle, which Leanne, a large and lumbering girl, with freckles and red hair, came and perched on, leaving Mariner and Knox no other option than to fold their legs and do the same. Samantha took the more comfortable option of a table just behind them. To Mariner’s right Leanne worried at a hang nail, and was unwilling to meet his eye. Kam remained standing, gently swaying, the child propped on her hip.
‘How many children have there been in here today?’ Mariner began.
‘Six altogether: three babies, two toddlers and a pre-schooler.’ Though he’d addressed Leanne it was Kam who spoke up from where she stood jiggling the child on her hip. ‘Four this afternoon after Christie took Samuel up to the pre-school room, to play with his own age group. And after, Jessica . . .’ she tailed off.
‘And Christie was out of the room from what time?’
Leanne abandoned her nail and looked up. ‘About half past one.’
‘Leaving the two of you alone in the room, with the children.’
‘It leaves us well within ratio.’ Though it meant nothing to Mariner, Samantha’s tone was defensive and the unease in her eyes seemed to infiltrate the other girls too. These were nothing more than frightened kids, not so very different from the young women they’d been interviewing earlier in the day for Ocean Blue. ‘And then what?’ he asked.
Again it was Kam who answered his question. Mariner tried to read the look in her eyes. ‘It was an ordinary afternoon,’ she said. ‘The babies had a sleep after lunch and woke up gradually. We put out toys for them to play with. Mr Singh collected Rajid at about two o’clock.’
‘And Mr Singh—?’
‘Definitely took his child.’ Samantha intervened. ‘I was in the office when they left the building, and he’s one of the few parents who has used the crèche before. I know him. And, well, it was obvious, wasn’t it?’
‘And then?’
The girls exchanged a nervous glance. Finally Leanne chipped in. ‘It’s been mad. A couple of the children have had loose nappies. We’ve been in and out of the bathroom all afternoon.’
‘Loose . . . ?’
‘I think she means the contents, boss,’ said Knox, the experienced family man, looking up from his pocketbook. Since he’d ceased entertaining the baby girl, he’d been scribbling as the girls talked.
‘Oh.’ That was an image Mariner didn’t care to linger on. ‘And all this was going on when the woman came in for Jessica?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who was in here at the time?’ asked Mariner.
‘Just me,’ said Leanne and suddenly all eyes were on her. She shrugged casually. ‘I thought she was Jessica’s mummy.’
Chapter Three
Leanne glared defensively at Kam. ‘You were in the bathroom changing Connor and I was trying to comfort Ellie. Like you said, she’s been crying all day. This woman came in and sort of smiled and went straight over to Jessica, so I thought—’
‘So this woman definitely took Jessica?’ Mariner felt a numbness spreading along the underside of his left thigh and shifted in an effort to get comfortable.
‘Well, she must have done, mustn’t she? Because when Jessica’s real mummy came in later, Jessica wasn’t here.’ She turned to look at Samantha. ‘I didn’t know she wasn’t — I mean, how was I supposed to know?’ The belligerence faded and her face began to crumple in the way that Ellie’s had moments before.
‘Nobody’s blaming you, Leanne,’ Samantha said, though it seemed to Mariner that her words lacked a certain sincerity.
‘It’s great that you saw the person who took Jessica, Leanne,’ he said, conscious of the need to keep her on side. ‘It means we stand a much better chance of finding her.’
‘I should have stopped her though, shouldn’t I?’ she said miserably. ‘If I had we wouldn’t be in this mess, and poor Mrs O’Brien—’
Mariner was pretty determined that this young kid wasn’t going to bear the responsibility for what appeared to be pretty lax security all round in the nursery. ‘It has happened but now we need to put it right. You can do that by telling me everything you can about this woman. What were you doing when the door opened and she came in?’ He knew that re-setting the scene would help her recall.
‘I was sitting on the carpet there, on a bean bag and I was cuddling Ellie, trying to make her stop crying.’
Mariner got up and walked over to the bean bags. ‘Here? And where was Jessica at this time?’
‘In her car seat on that side of the carpet, there.’
‘So, she was about three feet away from where you were sitting.’ Mariner picked up a little chair and plonked it where she had said. ‘And the woman came in. What did she do?’
‘She stood in the doorway and said hello.’
‘And you looked up and saw her. Just take a minute to think carefully. This is really important. Now, what did she look like?’ They’d get as much as they could now, and if necessary bring in a psychologist later to take her back over the events again.
Leanne shrugged, and Mariner’s hopes sank a little. ‘She was ordinary, no different from the other mums who come here. I only glanced at her for a second.’
They sank further. ‘Had you ever seen her before?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What about her hair colour?’
‘It was sort of brown, I think. But it might have been blonde.’
Mariner was beginning to see Samantha’s point about Leanne’s intellectual capacity. ‘Was she tall or short?’ he asked.
Leanne looked around her as if trying to judge alongside them all, but failed to come to a decision.
‘Thin or overweight?’ Mariner persisted.
Another shrug.
Mariner bit back his frustration. From where he stood by the bean bag he glanced over at the door. He squatted down to the level at which Leanne would have been, and from that perspective, suddenly he could see why Leanne’s memory was hazy at that point. The autumn leaves would have obscured most of her view. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s try something different. How did this woman behave?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did she hesitate at all?’
‘She might have done, I don’t know. I was trying to quieten Ellie.’
‘Okay, she was standing in the doorway. What did she do next?’
‘She went over to Jessica.’
‘And how did Jessica react?’
‘She didn’t. She was asleep in her baby seat. She’d nodded off.’
‘Her baby seat?’
‘Yeah, you know — the ones with the handle that you can strap into the car.’
‘All right. Then what happened?’
‘I think I said, “Oh, hello, you’re Jessica’s mummy.”’
‘So you told her the baby’s name before she said it.’
She blushed again. ‘I suppose I must have done.’
‘Did she say anything else?’
‘Something like: “oh, there she is, my little sweetheart. Mummy’s come to take you home” — the usual stuff that they say. Then she asked how Jessica had been and I said, “Fine.”
‘She asked me when she’d been fed and changed, so I said that we’d had to change her when she was sick, and that her feeding chart was on the wall by her coat and bag.’ Leanne nodded towards the little row of pegs with name labels above, that ran along one wall of the room. ‘She went and got them, then picked up Jessica’s car seat, said thanks and went.’
‘And she gave you
no reason to think that there was anything wrong at this time?’
‘No, there was nothing . . . she just went straight over to the baby. I mean, what mother doesn’t know her own child? And I was pretty busy trying to stop Ellie from crying. To be honest I was glad we’d have one less to think about.’
‘What time was this?’
‘About half past two.’
Christ, it had happened hours ago. The woman could be anywhere by now. They’d have to go national with the publicity right away. The press office would need to get busy with this one with maximum exposure. It would make a change from trying to keep things under wraps.
‘And when did you first realise something was amiss?’
Kam spoke up. ‘Not until Jessica’s real mummy came to collect her and we found that she wasn’t here. At first we couldn’t understand what had happened. It didn’t make sense.’
Leanne’s face had creased into a frown as if it still was a mystery.
‘What was Jessica wearing?’ Mariner asked.
‘A yellow babygro with a cardigan over the top,’ said Leanne, but even this detail was not straightforward.
‘No, it was green,’ Kam chipped in.
‘It was yellow.’ Leanne stuck to her story. ‘She was sick at lunchtime so I’d had to change her.’
Kam didn’t look convinced. They’d have to go with an either or.
‘And a babygro is one of those little suits like Ellie is wearing?’ Mariner interrupted.
‘Yes.’ From where she stood Kam went in to the bathroom and returned with a mint coloured stretchy suit. ‘It was exactly like this. We keep a supply for the babies who run out of clothes.’
‘Except it was yellow,’ muttered Leanne under her breath.
‘Can we keep that?’ Mariner asked Samantha. ‘We can show a photograph when we do the appeal. It would have this same label in the back?’ A manufacturer’s label was sewn into the neck.
‘Yes, Mrs Barratt bulk buys them as we don’t always get them back.’
‘It doesn’t look much for this weather. It’s cool outside.’
‘Jessica had a coat but her mum — the woman — just covered her with it and tucked it in. She said she didn’t want to wake the baby.’