The Crossing Page 15

  “She did. She called us straight away. Apparently she usually watches the girl set off from an upstairs window. The house is at the other end of the street from the bus stop, so too far away for her to have been able to take any kind of action, even if she was up to it. I get the impression she’s rather elderly. Husband is wheelchair-bound.”

  “Did she get the number of the van?”

  “No. She says she tried to see it, but couldn’t make out any plates. They might have been covered over, or maybe she was just too far away. The van was plain black, with nothing to distinguish it – no painting or logos on the sides.”

  “Black’s quite an unusual colour for a trade van.”

  “I daresay it is, Yates, but I don’t think that’s a very helpful observation at the moment. I’ve instructed road blocks to be set up on all the major trunk roads leading out of the county. I want you to get across to interview Mrs Knipes now. The address is Number 30, Woolram Wygate. I’ve sent PC Tandy already – she’ll meet you there. I’ve asked her to search the area around the bus stop before she goes on to Mrs Knipes’ house. It’s a long shot, but the girl’s assailant may have dropped something. I’m going to call the headmaster of Spalding High School now. After you’ve finished with Mrs Knipes, I’d like you to go and interview the girl’s friends. Ask them if anyone’s seen the prowler again. The head should have told us if they had, but you never know.”

  Tim was secretly impressed by the speed and thoroughness with which the Superintendent had acted.

  “There’s just one thing, Superintendent . . .”

  “Yes, Yates, what is it? We need to get on with this now!”

  “I know, sir, but I’m concerned about the headteacher – Richard Lennard. PC Tandy and PC Chakrabati went to see him about the prowler, and PC Tandy wasn’t impressed. She thought he wasn’t concerned enough – or that he was hiding something.”

  “There’s no concrete reason to doubt him, is there? No evidence of a criminal record or anything in his previous history?”

  “Not as far as I know, sir, but . . .”

  “Then we have to work with what we have, Yates. The man holds a position of responsibility and one of his pupils has gone missing. We can’t by-pass him on a whim of PC Tandy’s, can we?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And while you’re at it, suggest to him that it won’t be a good idea to talk to the Press. If the girl hasn’t been found in the next couple of hours, naturally we’ll hold a Press conference and involve the media in trying to find her. But we don’t want all sorts of people talking to them and sending mixed messages. We all have to sing from the same hymn sheet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But, Yates, keep an open mind about Lennard. See what you think when you meet him. If there is anything fishy about him, I’m sure you’ll sniff it out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, that’s all. Get on with it.”

  The Superintendent rang off.

  Despite the gravity of the situation, Tim couldn’t help smiling. Mixed messages, indeed! The Superintendent had managed to introduce a few during the latter part of their conversation. Hedging his bets, as usual. Still, he was at least prepared to consider Verity Tandy’s assessment of Richard Lennard. Perhaps age was mellowing him.

  Chapter Thirty

  NUMBER 30, WOOLRAM Wygate was a large L-shaped dormer bungalow set in an extensive but unadorned lawn. The main door was at the side of the house, almost in the middle of the ‘L’, at right angles to the road. As Tim walked towards it he heard an explosion of yapping erupt from inside. His mood sank. He detested small fussy dogs more than any postman.

  He was about to ring the bell when he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see PC Verity Tandy.

  “Hello. Superintendent Thornton told me you’d be here.”

  “Good morning, sir. I’ve been to see Mrs Knipes already, to reassure her that you were on your way. I’ve had a look round the bus stop area, but I haven’t found anything. My guess is the girl was snatched so fast that neither she nor her assailant left any trace, but you may feel it’s worth doing a fingertip search.”

  “I think you’re probably right. I’ll take a look myself later. I don’t want someone pouncing on me for not doing the job properly.”

  Verity Tandy grinned. Tim looked at her appraisingly. She’d repelled him when they first met, but he found her quite personable now.

  “No prizes for guessing who ‘someone’ might be,” she said.

  “No, indeed,” Tim replied rather primly. “I gather that the Knipes keep a mutt,” he added, to gloss over the short awkward silence that followed. “What kind is it?”

  “I’m not very well up on dogs, but I think it’s a shih tzu. It barks a lot, but it’s a timid thing, really. Frustrated, probably. Doesn’t get out much and thinks it’s seeing a bit of the action now.”

  Tim laughed.

  “I had no idea that you were a dog psychologist! I’ll bear it in mind, in case I need advice in the future.”

  Verity smiled uncertainly. She didn’t know how to take Tim.

  “Shall I ring the bell, sir? Mr and Mrs Knipes told me to walk straight back in, but I don’t like to. He’s in a wheelchair,” she added in a lower voice.

  “Then I think we should do as they say,” said Tim. “We’ll knock first. After the row that dog’s been making, they must know we’re here already.”

  Verity knocked rather timidly and entered the house, Tim following.

  “Hello? Mrs Knipes, it’s PC Tandy. DI Yates is here now.”

  Tim was relieved to see no sign of the dog. He found himself standing in a spacious hall containing a large sofa and a desk. There was a staircase at one end.

  He heard a tapping noise and the approach of slow footsteps. The door at the end of the hall opened and a gaunt, rather stooped woman with a thick, stylishly-cut grey bob advanced to meet him. She was leaning quite heavily on a gaily-patterned walking stick which more resembled a mountaineer’s trekking pole than a conventional aid for the elderly. Her clothes were expensive. Tim recognised the type: Mrs Knipes was what his mother would have called ‘county’. He reserved judgement. A residue of the working-class schoolboy he had once been mistrusted such people, even though he knew this made him guilty of stereotyping.

  Mrs Knipes rested for a moment, pressing the heel of her foot hard against the floor as if relieving some deep-seated pain. Steadying herself against the door frame, she held out her hand.

  “DI Yates, thank you for getting here so quickly. We appreciate it.”

  Her handshake was surprisingly firm. Moving closer to her, Tim saw she’d been crying. Her gaze met his briefly – her eyes were a watery pale blue – and dropped as quickly.

  “You’ll be wondering where my husband is. He’s taken the dog into the study. He’ll be back in a minute. He’s just composing himself. He’s finding this very hard. We both are.”

  “I understand how upset you are, Mrs Knipes, but whoever took your daughter doesn’t have much of a head start. It was a stroke of luck you saw him. We’ll start by asking you about it. Would you like to sit down somewhere?”

  “What? Oh, yes, of course. I wasn’t thinking. Come through to the drawing room. Would you like some tea?”

  “Not for me, thank you,” said Tim.

  “Perhaps I could make some tea for you?” said Verity.

  “That would be kind,” said Mrs Knipes. “I do feel a bit shaky. There’s a tray in the kitchen that I prepared for Arthur, and the tea caddy’s next to it. You’ll just need to take more cups from the cupboard.”

  Verity disappeared on her errand. Tim followed Mrs Knipes into a large, oblong room with French windows at either end. It contained two sofas set at right angles to each other, a number of matching chairs, some small tables and a piano. The walls were hung with water-colours of Li
ncolnshire scenes. Tim saw at a glance they were originals, not prints.

  Mrs Knipes headed for one of the armchairs. The folded rug draped over its back and the clutter of books and knitting to one side of it announced that it was ‘her’ chair. She propped her stick against it and settled herself, smoothing her skirt over her knees as she hoisted both legs on to a footstool. She took a silver-framed photograph from the table next to her and handed it to Tim.

  “That’s Cassandra. She’s a lovely girl – really beautiful,” she said dreamily, then added in a more businesslike voice, “Please, do be seated, DI Yates.” She gestured in the direction of the sofas. Obeying, Tim perched on the end of the one nearest to him. He scrutinised the photograph while Mrs Knipes looked at him expectantly. Despite her professions of anguish, he thought her behaviour too serene for a woman whose only child had just been abducted.

  “She’s certainly very pretty – and striking. Such fair hair. It’s quite unusual, isn’t it? Almost silver. Did she have a boyfriend?”

  “No,” Mrs Knipes responded curtly. “I expect you’d like me to tell you what I saw.”

  “Yes, of course. But can we start a little further back? Did Cassandra appear quite as usual last night and this morning? Did she seem upset or preoccupied about anything?”

  “No, I don’t think so. My daughter has a very sunny disposition, Detective Inspector. She’s not given to brooding. She’s also practical: she knows not to do anything that could aggravate her father’s condition.”

  “I see,” said Tim, thinking that therefore if the girl was worried about something she’d have been likely to try to conceal the fact. “What is her father’s ‘condition’, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Arthur had a combined stroke and heart attack two years ago. He’s confined to a wheelchair now and can’t move his legs. Someone comes in to wash him every day. Such an affliction is not unusual for his age, but that doesn’t make it less distressing.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tim was trying to work out roughly how old they were. Mrs Knipes’ words indicated that her husband was her senior – and she must have been nearing seventy. How did they manage to have a daughter who was still in her teens? Biologically speaking, he supposed it was just about possible – but unlikely.

  “Does she usually catch the bus to school?”

  “Not always. Sometimes she walks with her friends. But she had quite a lot to carry today and she was a bit late, so she decided the bus would be better.”

  “What did she have to carry?”

  “Sports equipment. And some home-made biscuits for the netball team. Mothers take it in turns to supply them when there’s a match.”

  “Was it a spur-of-the-moment decision to go by bus, or did she mention it last night?”

  “She said that she might catch the bus, but she’d wait to see how much time she had this morning. If she’d got up earlier, she’d probably have phoned one of her friends and asked them to come and help her carry the things.”

  “She didn’t phone her friends to say she wouldn’t be walking?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t hear her use the phone, but she’d have been more likely to text. I’m not one of those mothers who checks up on her children all the time. Besides, I’ve never needed to. Cassandra is as good as gold.” Mrs Knipes uttered these last few words with some defiance, as if her credentials as a parent were being challenged. Tim steered her back to less controversial territory.

  “So she ate her breakfast as usual, except that she was a little late?”

  “Yes.”

  “You told Superintendent Thornton you always watch her on to the bus when she catches it. From where do you do that?”

  “It’s a dormer bungalow. There’s one upstairs room, up in the eaves. We gave it to Cassandra after Arthur became ill. He can’t climb the stairs to it now and I thought it would allow her more privacy. Not that she’s ever asked for it,” she concluded, as if to anticipate Tim’s next question.

  “So you saw her off from her own bedroom window?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me exactly what you saw. Did you go upstairs before she left the house or afterwards?”

  “At the same time. I kissed her goodbye and began to climb the stairs while she collected her things from the kitchen. I heard the door close as I got to the top of the stairs. By the time I’d reached the window, she’d crossed the road. She turned to smile at me and I waved back. She couldn’t wave herself, because her hands were full.”

  “What was she carrying? Exactly, I mean, as you saw it from the window?”

  “She was wearing a rucksack containing her sports gear. She had her briefcase in one hand and a shoe-box containing the biscuits in the other. She was probably holding her bus pass ready in one hand, though I couldn’t see it. She wouldn’t have wanted to start fishing about for it when the bus arrived.”

  “So she looked up at you and smiled and walked up the road towards the bus stop. How light was it?”

  “Not very. It was getting light, but it was a bit foggy. The street lamps are quite good here, though. I could still see her when she reached the bus stop.”

  “How long would she have had to wait for the bus to come?”

  “Not long at all – in fact, I think the bus must have been late. Cassandra herself was late, as I’ve mentioned. She was cutting it quite fine.”

  “What happened next?”

  Mrs Knipes passed the back of her hand across her eyes.

  “A large van passed the house. The driver was driving fast – too fast for a residential road. After he’d got round the dog-leg in the road, he crossed the white line, so when he pulled up he was right next to the bus stop.”

  “What did Cassandra do?”

  “I couldn’t see her face. She just stood there.”

  “And then?”

  “He opened the rear doors of the van. Then he grabbed her and lifted her up and bundled her in. He was much stronger than she was.”

  “You’re quite sure it was a man?”

  “Yes, I’m certain. He was too tall and broad-shouldered to have been a woman. I was too far away to see his face. He was dressed completely in black – black jeans, black jacket, a black woollen hat.”

  Mrs Knipes gazed down at her mottled brown hands. Tim saw the tears come splashing down on them.

  “He lifted her in just as she was, carrying the box and the briefcase? She didn’t drop either of them? She didn’t try to struggle?”

  “It happened very quickly. She didn’t struggle at all – I suppose she was too surprised, or too frightened. I don’t know.” Mrs Knipes fixed her red-rimmed azure eyes on Tim.

  “Why do you think she didn’t try to fight him? Why didn’t she drop everything and just run away?”

  “I wish I knew the answer to your question, Detective Inspector. But I don’t think Cassandra’s reaction was unusual: if I try to put myself in the same situation, I think I’d probably just freeze with fright, like in those horrible nightmares where you’re trying to run away from something and suddenly you can’t move your legs.”

  “Indeed,” said a voice from the doorway. Tim turned to see that a lightweight wheelchair had glided noiselessly into the room. Its occupant was a tiny wizened man whose head was twisted away from his body at an unnatural angle. His emaciated face had shrunk to a collection of features printed on taut skin and the eyes behind the wire-framed spectacles were hugely magnified: he must have been almost blind. But his voice was strong and firm, well-modulated, even wry.

  “I can quite empathise with that sentiment, Susannah.” He turned to Tim. “As you can see, I have no need to use my imagination on the point.”

  He fingered the controls on the arms of his wheelchair with clenched but dexterous fingers and manoeuvred himself further into the room. Verity followed, bearing a tray laden with teapot and te
a-cups, which she placed carefully on the small table nearest his wife.

  Tim’s mobile rang.

  “Excuse me.”

  He strode rapidly out to the hall and closed the door, briefly glimpsing Susannah Knipes staring after him as he did so.

  “DI Yates.”

  “Tim? It’s Juliet.”

  “Hello, Juliet. I’m sorry, I should have thought to call you and Andy. Can you tell him that Cassandra . . .”

  “We know about Cassandra Knipes, Tim. Superintendent Thornton has briefed everyone here – we’ve been setting up the road-blocks. And I’ve just told Andy, who called a moment ago to say that Philippa Grummett has disappeared.”

  “What . . . ? I’m coming back to the station, Juliet.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  TIM HAD ASKED Verity Tandy to stay with the Knipes until a liaison officer could be appointed. He’d instructed her not to mention that Philippa Grummett had disappeared until he’d got a statement from the Cushings. He spoke to Andy, who was taking the call out of earshot in the Cushings’ garden. Patti Gardner was still examining the remains in the old pigsty.

  “Where are the Cushings?”

  “They’re in the house. They’re pretty shaken up.”

  “Where’s the daughter?”

  “She’s with them. She’s the one who discovered that Philippa was missing this morning. Obviously they didn’t send her to school.”

  “They wouldn’t know about Cassandra Knipes’ abduction, would they?”

  “No. I certainly haven’t mentioned it.”

  “Well, try to keep it like that. Don’t let any of them leave the house. You’ll have to interview them as thoroughly as possible. And for God’s sake, keep the media out of it if you possibly can.”

  “I don’t think the Cushings want to go anywhere. They seem to be pretty shaken up. We need at least one copper back at the accident site. Ms Gardner’s there by herself at the moment. I could do with some help here, too, if you want me to deal with the Press as well as interviewing the Cushings.”