The Crossing Read online

  “I don’t think so. What does the label say?”

  “Main bedroom.”

  “That may be because, from the photographs I’ve seen, the main bedroom was the only room at the lodge that was more or less left intact. This other stuff we’ve been ploughing through was just about literally scraped up off the floor.”

  Giash was yanking out the last of the nails.

  “Come on, you bastard!” he muttered as he prised off the lid of the crate. He peered into it. “I don’t think we’ll find much here. It seems to be full of clothes.” He flipped back the two or three garments on the top, inspecting them gingerly. “At least there doesn’t seem to be any shit on them. Should we take them out?”

  “Yes, but since they’re not ‘contaminated’, we’d better carry them over there.” Ricky indicated one of the narrow corridors that ran between the ranks of shelves. “We don’t want to be accused of damaging the Grummetts’ property.”

  They pulled the clothes out in armfuls and placed them at intervals in piles along the gangway. Giash wrinkled his nose.

  “They may not be covered in shit, but they still don’t smell very sweet. Don’t those people have a washing machine?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that question, but I suspect it may be ‘no’,” said Ricky. “The Grummetts strike me as being backward in pretty much every way.”

  They worked diligently through the piles of clothing. Most of it evidently belonged to Ruby Grummett and consisted of blouses, skirts and cardigans, with some horrific-looking foundation garments and voluminous vests and knickers. There was also a man’s suit and two or three shirts and ties.

  “What’s this?” said Giash. He had unwrapped a bundle folded into a piece of flannelette sheet sewn to form a flap-over pouch. “Baby clothes!”

  Ricky paused to look before resuming his rummage through the pockets of the suit. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose even the Grummetts had to dress their babies in something.”

  “These are all in pairs. Two of everything. All hand-knitted. All in pink.”

  “Well, you know more about kids’ clobber than I do. I suppose you need more than one of everything?”

  “Of course. But generally if someone’s made them you wouldn’t expect them to use exactly the same pattern and wool.”

  “No? Well, Ruby Grummett doesn’t strike me as being very imaginative. I’m surprised she had the nous to make baby clothes at all.” Ricky leaned across to take pluck two salmon pink matinee jackets from the old sheet. “They’re not identical, anyway. Look here: there’s a ‘P’ worked into the yoke of this jacket . . .”

  “ . . . and I’ll bet a ‘K’ worked into the other one,” said Giash. “For Philippa and Kayleigh. Ruby Grummett must be more sentimental than you’d give her credit for.”

  “Except that it isn’t a ‘K’,” said Ricky. “It’s either an ‘O’ or a ‘D’.”

  “Let’s see,” said Giash. He walked to the end of the gangway and held the tiny garment close to one of the lights. “You’re right,” he added. “It’s a ‘D’. How would you explain that?”

  “We may be discovering mysteries where there aren’t any,” said Ricky briskly. “Perhaps someone gave them some cast-off clothes – they may have belonged to twins. Or Ruby Grummett bought them in a charity shop.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Giash. “Have you found anything in those pockets?”

  “Plenty, but it’s only rubbish. Old sweet wrappers, some loose cash, used betting slips, a biro, that sort of thing. Nothing of interest.”

  “Let’s pile all this back into its box, then, and start on the last one. Then perhaps we can get some sleep before the fun starts tomorrow.”

  Andy Carstairs had called Jocelyn Greaves immediately after the debriefing and asked her if she could meet for a drink.

  “I’m surprised you’ve got the time,” she said, a little warily, he thought. “Aren’t you busy looking for those two missing girls?”

  “I’ll come clean,” said Andy. “This isn’t just a social call, much as I’d like it to be. I’d like to pick your brains for some more information about The Bricklayers, if you’re up for it.”

  “You’ve changed your tune. I seem to remember last time I brought them up it almost led to a quarrel.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. We now think they may be involved in this enquiry in some way. Strictly confidentially.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. Where should we meet? The Pied Calf?”

  “If that’s OK with you.”

  Andy headed for the Pied Calf as soon as the call was finished. Jocelyn arrived a few minutes later. She had rather a distracted air about her. Her long dark hair was tangled, as if she’d been running. It was damp at the front.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Yes, why shouldn’t I be? It’s Friday night, that’s all. Knackered after a week’s work.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to add to your workload. I hope it won’t be entirely a chore.”

  “No use fishing for compliments. But you can buy me a drink.”

  “Large red wine?”

  She laughed. “How did you guess?”

  Andy returned from the bar with the glass of wine and a small shandy. There was no chance he would be able to unwind with a decent drink this evening.

  “So,” he said, sitting down opposite her, “you told Giash Chakrabati we were friends.”

  It took her a moment to register.

  “Oh, you mean the Asian policeman I saw at the High School this morning. I’m afraid I didn’t take to him. He was on Richard Lennard’s side.”

  “Just doing his job. Technically, you were trespassing.” She tensed up immediately.

  “Yes. Well, I didn’t come here to be lectured . . .”

  “Of course not,” said Andy quickly. “Actually, I was quite pleased you said we were friends.”

  “I’m not sure I did say that. I think I said I knew you.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, even if Giash did give the impression of not being on your side, we’re increasingly suspicious about what’s going on at those Bricklayer meetings. I’d be grateful if you could tell me what you know.”

  Jocelyn eyed him doubtfully.

  “This is my story. I’ve been working on it for months.”

  “We won’t share it with anyone else.”

  “I daresay not, but if I tell you something that leads to early convictions, I probably won’t be able to publish anything at all at first. Then every hack’ll get hold of it before I’m allowed to write about it.”

  “I admit that’s a possibility. But from what you’ve told me, your findings are inconclusive at the moment, so you can’t publish anyway. And if you’re right and The Bricklayers are prosecuted, you’ll have a much bigger story to tell.”

  She toyed with her glass.

  “OK. I’ll tell you what I know. I first became interested in The Bricklayers when I was covering the local elections. Councillor Start stood again – he’s been a councillor for years – and I was looking for some kind of angle about him. He’s very right wing and I was hoping to uncover something that could discredit him.”

  “You mean, like Nazi sympathies or evidence of fraud?”

  Jocelyn looked up sharply and smiled uncertainly.

  “It isn’t a joking matter.”

  “I know that. Carry on.”

  “I just found one reference to The Bricklayers, on the Start construction website. I think it was put there by mistake, because the next time I looked it had gone. I tried to find out more about them, but drew a complete blank. They aren’t a registered charity. I couldn’t find any record of their activities. The elections came and went and Councillor Start was back in post again, but by this time I was intrigued and decided not to drop my investigation, such as it was. I was convinced there wa
s something very sinister about Councillor Start and his family and it was confirmed when I had a bit of a breakthrough.”

  “Why do you say ‘and his family’? Do you mean Matthew Start? Or his wife?”

  “I don’t know much about her, except that she’s a teacher at the school. Matthew Start’s an unpleasant piece of work. He has a little sideline, letting sub-standard flats to immigrants.”

  Andy paused for a second before deciding it was only fair if he confided in Jocelyn.

  “Did you know that twenty years ago the Starts had an au pair who disappeared?”

  Her eyes widened.

  “No, certainly not. What was her name? Who was she looking after? Au pairs usually work with children. Surely it wasn’t Matthew himself: he would have been in his early twenties then.”

  “Steady on! I can’t keep up with all the questions and actually have no answers. Tell me about your ‘breakthrough’.”

  “I went to Boston High School to interview the headteacher there about a new training programme the school was setting up. It was a cross between an Outward Bound course and the OTC. He’s a nice man. His name’s Alex Cooper. The story wasn’t my kind of thing – I’m not big on training kids to be soldiers – but I was getting paid for it and I decided to make it more interesting by including a bit more about Alex Cooper himself. It turned out he used to be the Head at Spalding High School. I asked him why he’d left and he blurted out this story about The Bricklayers and how they’d been using the school premises for their meetings. He was unhappy about it and tried to put a stop to it. From what he said, the governors more or less forced him to resign.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a resignation issue.”

  “No, but Councillor Start is the chairman of the governors.”

  “Did Cooper say why he didn’t like The Bricklayers?”

  “He didn’t give me any specific information. He said something about the Minnesota Study. Then he clammed up. I think he’s afraid of them.”

  “Go on,” said Andy.

  “Go on with what?”

  “You don’t mean to tell me you got that far and then didn’t bother to find out what the Minnesota Study was about?”

  For the first time that evening, she seemed to relax properly. She laughed again, this time with real mirth.

  “You’re getting to know me very well! Yes, I did find out more. It wasn’t difficult: it’s quite well-documented. It’s a nature / nurture thing. Experiments with siblings, particularly twins, to see if they develop in similar ways when they’re separated. I can send you some stuff about it if you’re interested.”

  “Thank you. I might take you up on that. But there’s nothing sinister about it, is there?”

  “Not the Minnesota Study itself. But it’s a bit creepy if you think about it. The siblings it studied had been separated by accident, but a warped mind might try to take it further than that.”

  “You mean like Mengele?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of that, though I suppose it’s possible. I was thinking more of separating siblings deliberately, to see how they developed.”

  “That couldn’t be done legally unless their parents gave them up for adoption. And in this country social services would try to keep them together if they possibly could.”

  “Precisely,” said Jocelyn.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  IT WAS VERY early on Saturday morning. Tim had been working through the night. After shutting down the door-to-door enquiries at almost midnight and checking on the police manning the roadblocks, he’d revisited all the information they’d gathered so far about the kidnappings. There was pitifully little about the actual events: no witnesses to Philippa Grummett’s disappearance or even proof that she had indeed been kidnapped, and only Cassandra Knipes’s mother’s account about her daughter’s abduction. Could Mrs Knipes have been mistaken, or lying? Tim doubted it. He had himself seen how distressed the woman was and she didn’t strike him as a liar.

  The cases had to be linked, he was pretty sure about that, although the supporting evidence was slender, consisting mainly of the missing girls’ physical similarity. Nevertheless, it gave him hope, as it suggested they had not been seized at random by a serial killer or rapist. There were other, more tenuous links if you looked hard enough for them: both girls were clever, both brought up in unusual households where they didn’t altogether seem to fit and both attended local grammar schools. Another factor, although it was circumstantial, was the peripheral presence of Councillor Start at both investigations. He’d turned up at the Grummetts’ house on the night of the rail accident and he’d been at Spalding High School, protesting about the threatened privacy of his Bricklayers meeting, when Giash Chakrabati had spoken to Richard Lennard after Cassandra Knipes was taken.

  Juliet’s preliminary re-opening of the cold case concerning the disappearance of the Finnish au pair established that Matthew Start was last person to see her alive . Start had also delivered the sick young woman to the Johnson Hospital, a coincidence too far even if he’d offered a convincing explanation for it. That he had himself since disappeared convinced Tim that he held the key to the fate of all of these women, though at present the police had no grounds to arrest him.

  “Tim? Are you OK?”

  Tim raised his head from where it was resting on his folded arms. He must have fallen asleep at his desk. He groaned and looked at his watch: 5.45 a.m. Juliet was standing beside him.

  “I’ll make you some tea,” she said. “Then we need to leave for the hospital, if you want to see Staff Nurse Burrell. I called her on my way in, so she’s expecting us.”

  “Thanks. God, my neck’s stiff. Just let me get a quick wash, will you, and change my shirt? Some tea would be great.”

  It would still be dark for several more hours, but when they left the police station Tim looked at the sky and could see the stars. The fogs that had haunted the Fens for the last few days had dispersed. In their wake a cruel coldness had set in. It was a raw day for a netball match.

  The cold stung his cheeks but prodded his brain into alertness. He was aware, however, that he was probably still too groggy to drive.

  “How much sleep did you get?” he asked Juliet.

  She shrugged.

  “Don’t tell me you carried on working after you went home.” He changed his mind about offering her the car keys.

  “Only for a while. I wanted to find out more about the Starts. I’m convinced they’re at the root of all these cases.”

  “You and me both. Any joy?”

  “Just a couple of things. Councillor Start describes himself as a widower, but in fact he was divorced from his wife, whose name was Carol, more than twenty years ago. They had a daughter quite late in the marriage: ten years younger than Matthew.”

  “That would explain the au pair: to look after the daughter, not Matthew. Do you know the daughter’s name?”

  “Yes, it was Elizabeth. Nothing exotic. I understand why you’re asking: in case it was another of those Greek-sounding names. The other thing I discovered relates to the names, though only in a way. Matthew Start studied classical architecture at Sheffield University.”

  “That’s interesting, but it doesn’t explain much. He couldn’t have been responsible for naming Cassandra Knipes or Philippa Grummett. And certainly not Helena Nurmi.”

  “I agree with you about Helena. I’d like to keep an open mind on the other two.”

  Tim shot her a quizzical look.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “I don’t have anything to add at the moment. I just have a hunch that those names were chosen by the same person.”

  “OK. What about Start’s wife? Do we know she’s alive and kicking? And the daughter?”

  “Both very much so. They moved right away from Spalding, which may be significant. Carol Start was a teacher. She moved to a s
chool in Nottingham and eventually got married again, to another teacher. Elizabeth moved with her, and later took her stepfather’s name. She studied languages and is now also a teacher.”

  “There seem to be a lot of teachers involved in this! Veronica Start teaches languages as well, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes. I don’t know whether that’s a coincidence or not. You’re the one who’s interested in psychology.”

  Tim looked across at her sharply but could detect no glimmer of irony.

  “I suppose when he married Veronica he could have been trying to compensate for something that he’d missed out on,” he said sagely.

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  Staff Nurse Marianne Burrell was waiting in the hospital foyer, standing in much the same spot from which she’d seen Matthew Start approaching with the terminally-sick woman the day before. She was tired and still feeling shaken by the news that the woman had died. She watched Tim and Juliet cross the path and enter through the sliding doors. In her mind’s eye, she saw the young woman’s mother walking towards her again and in that instant grasped what it was that had been nagging at her.

  “Good morning. DI Yates and DC Armstrong,” said Tim. “We’ve come to see Staff Nurse Burrell.”

  “I’m Marianne Burrell. I spoke to you earlier,” she said, addressing Juliet. “I’ve just remembered what it is that was bothering me – the thing I mentioned to you on the phone.”

  “I’d prefer it if we could start at the beginning,” said Tim.

  “Do tell us what’s troubling you first, if you want to,” Juliet was quick to counteract Tim’s early-morning negativity, sensing something important. “Is there somewhere comfortable where we can talk?”

  “Of course. Come with me.”

  Marianne Burrell led them to a small office off the reception area. She had become animated, almost excited.

  “I knew there was something odd about those two women as soon as they came in,” she said. “I don’t just mean that the daughter was obviously very ill. They seemed not to belong, somehow. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I just realised what it was when I was watching you walk up the path. It was their clothes. They were twenty years out of date. The mother’s red patent handbag was exactly like one my friend used to have years ago.”