July, Pete recalled. Annie’s tenth birthday. Jane and Dave had called round to give her a little something from the team and to let him and Louise know the latest on Tommy’s case. Not that there had been much news to pass on. ‘Yeah, well. I hadn’t been sleeping too well for a few weeks by then.’ He’d lain awake for hour after hour every night, getting up two or three times a night. Sometimes he would stand in Annie’s doorway and just watch her sleep. Other times, he would wander the house, check the doors and windows or go to his office and sit at the computer, trying whatever he could think of in a search for clues – anything that would tell him where Tommy might have gone.
‘It showed. You looked like you’d done five rounds with Frank Bruno.’
Pete grunted. ‘Thanks. Back to my normal, handsome self now, am I?’
She slowed, indicating right. Gave him a brief laugh. ‘Don’t know about that, but you certainly look a bit more normal than you did then.’
‘That’s all right then. Wouldn’t want to frighten the punters.’
She made the turn into a side street lined on both sides with parked cars and accelerated again.
‘So, come on. What’s the latest on Tommy?’
She glanced at him, meeting his gaze for an instant before returning her eyes to the road ahead. Sighed. ‘There’s nothing to tell. It’s like he vanished into thin air.’
‘Except people don’t. He went somewhere, somehow.’
She took a left turn, working her way through the back streets towards the home of the Whitlocks. ‘Well, yeah. But, how are we supposed to find out where and how if he wasn’t seen?’
Pete sighed. This was not a discussion to be had with Jane. It wasn’t her problem. It was Simon Phillips’. But, one thing he was certain of – there was no way the Whitlocks were going to suffer months of the same agony that he and Louise had. Not if he could help it. Whatever it took, he would find their daughter.
‘Here we go.’ Jane turned at another junction and drove slowly until she spotted the right number on a gatepost.
‘Blimey, they ain’t poor, are they?’
The house was set in its own neatly manicured grounds behind a high, thick hedge.
Jane turned in through high wooden gates that already stood open and parked in front of the double-width garage.
‘You never been round this way before?’ Pete asked as they stepped out and made their way to the front door.
‘Don’t get too much crime up here, do we? And you know me. I come from the other side of the river.’
Pete laughed. ‘Well, that’s closer than me. Only money round Okehampton is the old kind. Manor houses and the like.’ He reached for the bell-push, but hadn’t touched it when the door opened to reveal a man in shirtsleeves and smart trousers.
‘Detective?’
‘DS Peter Gayle. And this is DC Bennett.’
‘Come in. My wife’s through there.’ He stood back and indicated a door to the right of the big hallway.
They went into a large, bright sitting room where Mrs Whitlock sat on one of three cream sofas, a barely touched cup and saucer on the coffee table in front of her. In her thirties, blonde hair held back from her face in a chignon, Pete could see that she was a woman of natural style and beauty, despite the haunted look she wore now.
Her husband followed them in and sat beside her, taking her hand. ‘Please, have a seat. These are the detectives, Jess.’
She glanced up, clearly in shock.
Pete took the sofa at right angles to theirs. ‘Pete Gayle. This is Jane Bennett. We just need to establish the facts of the situation, then we’ll get out of your hair.’
‘Please. Ask us anything,’ Alistair said. ‘Just . . . find her, Sergeant.’
Pete took out his notebook and saw Jane doing the same. ‘That’s what we’re here for. Now, we only have what you told my colleague on the phone, so… We need to build as full a picture as we can.’
‘Why? Surely, it’s not Rosie’s fault she’s gone? What can we tell you that’ll help find whoever took her?’
‘If she’s been abducted, rather than gone off on her own . . .’
‘Of course, she hasn’t gone off on her own,’ Whitlock snapped over him. ‘She has no reason to. She’s perfectly happy at home. And at school.’
Pete raised his hands. ‘As I was saying, if that’s the case, then whoever took her would have probably at least seen her before. It may well be someone she knows or someone you do. Or, if it was random, then one of you may have seen something out of the ordinary. Perhaps an unusual vehicle on the road out there.’ He waved towards the street. ‘Someone hanging around when you picked her up from school or in town. Anything.’
Whitlock squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back for a moment. ‘I’m sorry. Where should we start?’
‘We’ll need a picture of her. As recent as possible. Mrs Whitlock, you took her to school this morning. Is that usual?’
She looked up, a dazed look in her hazel eyes, took her hand back from Alistair and clasped them in her lap. ‘We share the job. Sometimes I do it, sometimes Alistair does.’
‘All right. Which way did you go? As much detail as you can, please.’
She shook her head slightly. ‘The same way as always. Left at the end of the road, bear right then turn right by the junior school. It’s really not that far. We only drive her because she’s never up in time to walk.’
‘Did you see anything out of the ordinary along the way?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing. It was just an ordinary morning.’
‘No one following you, perhaps?’ Pete pushed. ‘An unusual vehicle parked nearby when you got there? An accident or roadworks?’
‘No, there was nothing. As I said, just a normal morning. I dropped Rosie barely a hundred yards from the school gates. There were mothers and kids everywhere, just like always. I pulled away and . . .’ Her face crumpled and she covered it with her hands as she burst into tears. Her husband put an arm around her shoulders and held her.
Pete recalled Louise’s similar reaction in this same situation, just a few months ago, and his own seething need to stop talking and get out there, searching for his child. Emotion swelled like a lump in his chest. ‘I’m . . .’ He coughed and cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Whitlock. But this is very necessary. You didn’t see anyone you knew when you got there? Stop for a chat, maybe?’
She took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head. ‘As I said, I dropped her off, pulled away and went on to work.’
As she took out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes, Pete turned to her husband. ‘And if you take Rosie to school, you go the same way?’
‘Yes.’
‘At the same time?’
‘Of course.’
‘And when you realised she was missing, you phoned her friends?’
‘Yes. That was my first thought. Maybe she’d gone home with one of them. She doesn’t have any evening activities on a Tuesday. But they said they hadn’t seen her all day.’ His voice seemed to clog. He swallowed.
Instinctively, Pete was inclined to believe the couple. They gave every appearance of being genuine and honest and, having been in this same situation himself, just a few months ago . . . Or was it that that made him feel this way? He