Author: Chris Collett
Category: Mystery
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‘At any rate not very deserving of a car,’ Mariner observed, noting the battered Escort that pulled away. The wall clock said a little after twenty past six.
‘Ellie can’t see a lot of her mum,’ DCI Sharp remarked.
‘This government wants women back in the workplace,’ replied Mrs Barratt. ‘It keeps me in business, but the consequence, to be truthful, is that lots of children don’t see much of their parents.’ She didn’t indicate whether or not she agreed with the principle, but presumably she was complicit, as she was making her living from it.
‘How long have you been open?’ Sharp asked, conversationally.
‘Nearly ten years.’
‘A lot must have changed in that time.’
‘There’s more paperwork, if that’s what you mean,’ said Trudy Barratt, with feeling. ‘Endless guidelines and regulations.’
‘I was thinking more about the huge expansion in childcare provision. It must have created more competition. Any rivalry with other local nurseries?’
Mrs Barratt smiled. ‘In my view there’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition. It helps to keep us on our toes. And there are plenty of children to go around.’
‘Your contract with the hospital must help,’ said Mariner.
‘It’s a useful cushion, yes.’
Nicely understated, thought Mariner. ‘There must be other nurseries who would like that contract,’ he said.
‘I daresay there are, but they haven’t discussed it with me.’
‘Which other nurseries are closest to you, geographically?’
Trudy Barratt gave them a couple of names, which Mariner mentally noted.
‘And they’re doing well?’
‘You’d have to ask them that.’
‘One of the things we must consider is whether this could be personal,’ DCI Sharp went on. ‘Can you think of any reason why someone might want to bring your nursery into disrepute?’
‘No.’
‘Anyone who might simply want to make life difficult for you? What about any staff who have recently left?’
Trudy Barratt smiled. ‘You’re clearly unfamiliar with the early years childcare sector Chief Inspector. Staff moving on is a feature of life.’
‘Anyone who went under a cloud?’ asked Mariner.
‘Not that I can remember. Generally staff leave for promotion, or to go and work in schools where the hours are more favourable, or to start their own families.’
‘All the same, we’ll need a list of all those who have left in the last six months.’
‘It will be a substantial list.’
Mariner followed Trudy Barratt back into the office, where she was about to take another file off the shelf when on the CCTV monitor they saw a man appear at the nursery gates. He looked disorientated and harassed, and by the time he’d reached the door Mariner had already correctly identified him. The buzzer sounded and in a rare traffic-free moment he spoke into the intercom. ‘Peter Klinnemann’ he said, breathlessly into the microphone. ‘I’m Jessica’s father.’
Chapter Five
Tony Knox had taken Christie back to Granville Lane, where the station had erupted into the activity levels more typical of a weekday morning. ‘We’ll go up to DI Mariner’s office,’ he told receptionist Delrose, signing Christie in. ‘It will be quieter.’ And away from prying eyes. ‘Can you let the e-fit tech know when he gets here?’
An incident room was being created adjacent to CID on the first floor and Knox had to steer Christie past officers laden with files and equipment, holding open doors and letting others take precedence.
In Mariner’s office Knox closed the door on the pandemonium. ‘Have a seat,’ he told Christie. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
Christie declined. She was staring at the computer printout pinned to the board above Mariner’s desk, depicting the face of a young woman. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Madeleine,’ said Knox, hoping they could leave it at that and spare her the grisly details. When Mariner had first stuck the picture there, eight months ago, anyone coming into his office had reacted in the same way, their attention drawn to the haunting image. Charlie Glover had even accused Mariner of being macabre, but it was interesting how quickly they’d all become inured to it — Knox included. He didn’t even know why the boss had kept it. There were plenty of other unsolved murders festering in the filing cabinets. Why should this one be different? Could it be because she was a young female, or because she’d so recently given birth, meaning that somewhere out there was a child without its mother? Or perhaps the frustration was that she wasn’t strictly unsolved.
Christie was watching him expectantly, waiting for more. Knox hesitated. ‘She’s a young woman who was murdered last year,’ he told her.
‘Oh.’
‘She was found dumped down a drain, tied up with duct tape and wrapped in bin liners. There wasn’t much of her face left, so what we’ve got there is a computer mock-up.’
He’d said too much. Christie had paled, the mark on her face standing out more lividly. She swallowed hard. ‘Did you catch the person who did it?’
‘Not exactly.’
It was Charlie Glover mostly who’d been instrumental in tracking down the Albanian national whose prints they’d found all over the tape; the same man they were certain had first strangled Madeleine with his bare hands. But now he was dead, too, gunned down in his home city of Tirana before extradition procedures could be implemented and the case against him brought and proven.
No, the real mystery about this young girl was that she remained without an identity. Despite widely circulating the image both here and in Albania, no one had come forward to claim her as a daughter or a sister. Charlie Glover had named her Madeleine after Caravaggio’s Mary Magdalene, his wife’s favourite painting. And they hadn’t yet come up with a real name to replace it. It was the kind of loose end everyone hated.
Christie was transfixed by the image. ‘I thought I might know her. I thought she came into the nursery.’
‘She did?’ Knox’s heart beat a little faster.
Suddenly Christie seemed less certain. ‘Well, someone like her, anyway.’
‘Oh.’ Someone like her. They’d lost count of the number of people who’d said that. They waited less than five minutes for Susan Cohen, the e-fit technician to arrive.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Knox said, getting up to leave. He saw Christie’s face. ‘We have to be sure I don’t influence what you say,’ he told her. ‘Sue will look after you. I’ll go and get us a cuppa. How do you take it?’
‘Milk no sugar,’ she said, meekly.
After forty-five minutes Cohen called Knox in again and presented him with a computer generated image of the woman who had abducted Jessica. ‘Fantastic,’ he said studying the portrait.
‘She’s done really well,’ Cohen seemed genuinely impressed. ‘Very observant.’
Christie blushed again, unsure of what to do with the compliments. ‘I thought about joining the police, once,’ she told Knox, after Cohen had packed up her things and gone.
‘What’s stopping you? You might be good,’ said Knox.
‘Jimmy would never let me.’
‘Jimmy?’
‘My boyfriend. He doesn’t have a very high opinion of the police. Besides, he wants us to start a family, and he thinks it would be too dangerous.’
‘Do you want a family too?’
She smiled, one of the rare moments since they’d got here when she appeared relaxed. ‘I’d like a little girl one day. I’d call her Chantelle.’
‘You always let your boyfriend tell you what to do?’ Knox asked, deliberately steering the conversation.
‘Oh he’s not like that, not really.’
‘Is that how you got that bruise on your face?’ Silence. ‘It’s all right, Christie,’ Knox said, quietly. ‘It happens. It happened to me.’ Unbuttoning his shirt cuff, Knox rolled up his sleeve to show her the scars on his forearm that were only just beginnin
g to fade. She looked up at him, wide eyed. ‘My girlfriend was in an . . . accident,’ he said. ‘She blamed me. And in a way I could understand it. If it hadn’t been for me she wouldn’t have been there, the place where it happened. So she used to hit me and scratch me, and throw things sometimes too.’
‘Jim can’t help it,’ Christie said, softly. ‘His business isn’t doing very well. It gets him down and sometimes he has trouble controlling his temper.’ She sipped her tea, then lifted her eyes to fleetingly meet his. ‘What did you do?’
‘I put up with it for a while,’ Knox said casually. ‘I told myself my girlfriend couldn’t help it. She’d been in an accident and was just having trouble controlling her temper.’ He shot her a meaningful look. ‘Then I realised that it wasn’t enough of an excuse, so I got out.’ Knox got to his feet. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’
Dropping the e-fit in at the press office to be immediately circulated, Knox drove Christie himself. ‘We’ll need to talk to you again,’ he said. As she got out of the car Knox handed her a card. ‘Here’s my number in case you think of anything else that might help us with finding Jessica. And if things get rough, give me a call, eh?’ he said. ‘Remember, you don’t have to put up with it.’ As Knox glanced up at the modern terraced starter-home a figure appeared at a ground-floor window. ‘Do you want me to come in and have a word?’
‘No! Really, I’ll be fine.’ Christie looked down at the card then back at Knox. ‘Thanks.’
Knox watched her let herself into the house before driving off.
* * *
Mariner took Peter Klinnemann straight up to the staff room, where he and his wife held one another tightly, their hands locked together. When they were ready to talk he had to ask Klinnemann to spell his name.
‘It’s Austrian,’ Klinnemann said. His English was flawless with barely a trace of an accent, but Mariner noticed that he pronounced his words carefully and some of the phrasing was unusual, betraying him as someone for whom English was not his mother tongue.
‘You live here permanently?’ Mariner asked. He couldn’t help but also remark that Peter Klinnemann was significantly older than Emma O’Brien, mid-fifties perhaps, compared with her late thirties.
‘I have dual citizenship,’ Klinnemann said. ‘It was granted when I married my wife. She’s English.’
‘His first wife,’ Emma O’Brien added pointedly.
‘What line of work are you in, Mr Klinnemann?’
‘I work in the field of research.’
‘And you’re based in Cambridge?’
‘That’s correct. I don’t understand, how has this happened?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to work out too,’ said Mariner. ‘All we know is that at about half past two this afternoon a woman came into the nursery, told staff that she was here to collect her child, picked up Jessica and walked out again. Unfortunately, the people who were in the room at the time hadn’t met your wi— your partner, so they had no reason to question her actions. At the moment we have no way of knowing what the motive was—’
‘So she could be some crank,’ Emma O’Brien broke in. ‘Someone with mental health problems, like the woman who stole that baby from the hospital!’
‘We don’t know that,’ Mariner tried to reassure her. ‘There could be any number of reasons why this has happened. This woman appeared outwardly fairly calm and collected. It’s one of the reasons the staff didn’t challenge her. Nothing about her demeanour set alarm bells ringing.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. She could have just been a good actress.’
‘There’s that possibility,’ Mariner conceded. ‘But we’ve every reason to think that Jessica is being well looked after.’
With some effort Peter Klinnemann disengaged himself from his partner. ‘I should phone the children and let them know what’s going on. If they should happen to see this on the news—’
‘Surely they can manage for a few hours without you?’ Emma O’Brien retorted.
‘Of course, but they will be worried.’
‘I doubt it. They’ll be rubbing their hands in glee.’ The bitterness in her voice took Mariner aback. He and Millie exchanged a look.
Peter Klinnemann flashed an uncertain smile. ‘That’s nonsense, darling, and you know it.’
‘I don’t want them here.’ Emma was adamant.
‘I’m just going to let them know what’s happening, that’s all.’
When Klinnemann left the room, Mariner followed him down the stairs and into the hall, waiting at a discreet distance while he made the call. After a substantial pause, Mariner heard him speak at length, uninterrupted. He was leaving a message.
‘I didn’t know that Jessica has brothers and sisters,’ Mariner said when he’d finished.
‘A half-brother and half-sister; they’re the children from my first marriage,’ Klinnemann said, almost apologetically. ‘They’re grown up now but Paul often stays with us. He’ll be devastated if he sees the news. I don’t want him dashing over here.’ It was unconvincingly said.
‘They must be very fond of their little sister,’ Mariner said.
Klinnemann didn’t appear to hear the remark, but Mariner bided his time. ‘Actually, they’re not terribly thrilled,’ Klinnemann admitted eventually. ‘Emma and I began our affair two years ago, while I was married to their mother. Jessica was a surprise to us all. I was still living at home when Emma discovered that she was pregnant, so things are rather raw. My first wife took it very badly and of course the new baby effectively ended our marriage, perhaps sooner than I had planned. Even though their mother and I knew that it was over, the children do seem to have cast Emma as the wicked witch.’
‘Were you able to reassure your son?’
Klinnemann glanced down at his handset. ‘He’s not answering his phone. I had to leave a message.’
The two men climbed back up the stairs together. ‘Which company do you work for?’ Mariner asked.
‘I head up a team at Hamilton.’
The name seemed familiar to Mariner but he couldn’t quite place it. ‘Researching into what?’
‘Healthcare products most of all.’
Klinnemann seemed reluctant to elaborate and Mariner was none the wiser, though he’d have someone on the investigation team follow it up. He gave a neutral nod, holding open the door of the staff room for Klinnemann to enter.
Emma O’Brien had been crying again, and was vigorously blowing her nose. She grabbed Klinnemann’s arm as he sat down beside her.
That’ll be good for the cameras, thought Mariner, at the same time hating his detachment. ‘I need to ask a couple more questions,’ he said. ‘We have to consider that this may not have been a random snatch.’
‘What do you mean?’ Emma O’Brien asked.
‘We just have to look at all the options. It’s routine procedure. Who did you talk to about coming here today?’
‘I might have mentioned it to a couple of people.’
‘Did you mention the crèche?’
‘I don’t remember. I suppose I was worried about leaving Jessica, so I might have mentioned it to a couple of girlfriends. The leaflet has been pinned to the board in the kitchen for a few weeks too.’
‘Did your children know?’ Mariner asked Klinnemann.
‘It’s very possible, but are you implying that they are involved?’ Klinnemann was incredulous. ‘They wouldn’t do something like this.’ Emma O’Brien’s face said she wasn’t so sure. It was something they’d have to come back to, perhaps when she was alone.
‘We’d like you to be present at a press conference to be broadcast on the mid-evening news.’ Mariner said. ‘All we will do at this stage is appeal to Jessica’s abductor to let us know that she’s safe.’
‘Oh, God.’ Emma O’Brien looked about to faint. Klinnemann tightened his arm around her.
‘It won’t be necessary for you to speak on this occasion,’ Mariner said. ‘And I’m sorry to ask you to go in front of the
cameras at a time like this, but we have to let the abductor know how much distress she is causing.’
Klinnemann squeezed his partner’s hand. ‘Yes, of course. We’ll do anything.’
Mariner stood up and DCI Sharp did the same. ‘We’ll keep you posted,’ Mariner said, and followed Sharp out of the room. They reconvened in a darkened playroom next door that overlooked the main road.
‘What do you think?’ Sharp asked.
‘They’re holding up pretty well considering,’ said Mariner.
‘What an ordeal to have to go through.’
Glancing out Mariner saw the brand-new Jeep Cherokee parked half on the pavement, with its nursery sticker in the back window. ‘Mrs Barratt seems to be doing very well out of the business. How profitable do you reckon it would be, a setup like this?’ he queried.
‘She’s got a captive market,’ said Sharp. ‘This has to be the most convenient nursery for hospital staff to leave their children at. I noticed the list of charges on the wall though, and the rates seem pretty competitive.’
Mariner wondered how she knew that. ‘Doesn’t seem right somehow,’ he said. ‘Leaving kids here at such a young age. Shouldn’t they be with their mums?’
Sharp allowed herself a wry smile. ‘Only a man would say that. In theory, of course, being home with your baby is a great idea. But have you any idea of the impact a break in career has on a woman? If you don’t have qualifications then you’re consigned to the lowest paid jobs that can accommodate childcare, and if you are qualified and experienced you drop countless rungs on the career ladder. Some women never catch up. If there was no alternative we’d have considered this for ours.’
‘I didn’t know you had kids.’ Mariner couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.
This time she laughed out loud. ‘Three of them: nine, seven and two.’
Mariner tried to reconcile this with what he’d been told of her career history. There had been no mention of maternity leave and certainly not three lots of it. And if she’d taken all that time out, her rise to DCI had been even more meteoric than he’d thought. Maybe the kids were adopted. ‘So who looks after them?’ he asked.