Kim raised an eyebrow. ‘You really can’t narrow it down?’
Suzie shook her head.
‘Anything you remember about the journey? Was it bumpy, smooth, noisy, bendy?’
‘I’m sorry, Officer, it’s been so long ago now that any detail is lost to me.’
Kim had a sneaking suspicion it was lost to her twenty-seven years ago as well.
‘If there’s nothing further, I really must get off to work.’
‘Of course,’ Kim said, rising from the bed.
There was little point in posing any more questions to Suzie Keene, who appeared to have no memory of the important stuff, and Kim had the distinct feeling that she wouldn’t tell them if she did.
Never had she heard of a kidnapper abducting a child to feed them, clothe them, educate them and then free them untouched and unharmed.
So why was Suzie Keene lying about the whole thing?
Nineteen
‘You know, Penn, I’m struggling a bit with this one,’ Stacey said honestly. ‘I can’t peg this guy as a murderer.’
It was a feeling that had been swirling around her stomach all night. It had sat with her at her desk, it had followed her to the canteen while she got her head down for an hour and accompanied her into the shower block before the others turned up for work.
She’d seen the disapproving look on the boss’s face, but she hadn’t wanted to go home and relax when the others were pulling extra hours. Not that there was anything to go home for anyway. Devon’s job as an immigration officer was equally as demanding as her own, and she had left early Sunday morning for a four-day sting operation in Kent. Their flat had felt empty the second she’d walked out the door.
It wasn’t until Sunday night that Stacey had headed for bed around eleven and found an almost life-size cuddly giraffe on Devon’s side of the bed. He’d been sprayed with Devon’s favourite perfume and held a note saying he needed lots of cuddles. Everywhere she’d looked since she’d found little Post-it notes with messages from her wife.
She smiled at the realisation that they were over halfway, and that Devon would be home tomorrow evening. In the meantime, she had to try and alter her thinking on Steven Harte.
‘Stace, we’ve already—’
‘I know that but tell me honestly what you think. Do you feel that he abducted and killed Melody Jones and has kidnapped Grace Lennard too?’
Penn raised his head and took a good look at the screen.
Steven Harte was sitting comfortably and scrolling through his mobile phone.
‘Okay, I will admit that he doesn’t strike me as a murderer, but it’s dangerous to assume that, and we can’t get past the fact he brought himself to the station.’
‘But look at all the good works he’s done. Do murderous psychopaths really commit hundreds of thousands of pounds to good causes?’
‘Again, Stace, I don’t think one is mutually exclusive of the other. I think we’ve only got to look at Jimmy Savile to prove that one wrong.’
‘I take your point, but I still have my doubts,’ she said, sighing heavily just so Penn knew how much that concession had cost her.
‘Well, there’s nothing dodgy about Grace’s family that I can see. Claire Lennard has one sister who lives in New Zealand, an elderly grandmother she helps to care for, a father who retired to Spain with his second wife four years ago and a cousin who is a barrister in Manchester. Barely a parking ticket between the lot of them. Very clean.’
‘Squeaky,’ Penn agreed. ‘Now the Jones family are a little more colourful. One of Melody’s sisters is in prison for armed robbery, and another had two kids before she was seventeen. Robbie’s not been in much trouble, but he is making a killing on eBay. He’s been selling gifts and donated goods on there for around fifteen years.’
‘Traded up from the car boot then?’
‘Oh yeah, and there’s a noticeable upsurge after an appearance by Lyla, of which there are many,’ he said, waving a list in the air.
‘Go on,’ Stacey said, sitting forward.
‘By my count, over the years she’s done at least ten documentaries – four of those were specifically about Melody and the rest were various unsolved crimes. Some were UK and a couple were for cable channels in other countries. She’s done breakfast television a dozen times and that seems to be the big earner.’
‘How much?’
‘By my calculations, in the last fifteen years the family has made at least fifty-three thousand pounds from selling the tokens they’ve been sent. There’s no way of knowing what payment or expenses Lyla has made from forty-three articles in the local and national press and the dozens of magazine stories, or what the family received in cash and vouchers.’
‘I can hear the disapproval in your voice,’ Stacey said, and she didn’t disagree.
‘Somehow, they managed to move off Hollytree, which I don’t blame anyone for doing, but they profited from the disappearance and probable murder of their daughter or sister or whatever. It just doesn’t sit well that the family were able to—’
Penn stopped speaking as his phone rang, surprising them both.
He answered it and listened, his face freezing by the second.
He offered his thanks and ended the call.
‘I’d hold off on that medal for Harte’s good works for a minute, Stace,’ he said, making another call.
Twenty
‘You reckon we can find a way to tie Steven Harte to Suzie Keene?’ Bryant asked as they headed back to the station.
‘And charge him with what, taking her on holiday? You heard Suzie. He fed her, clothed her, gave her a big bed and a bathroom, educated her and then sent her home. If Harte was responsible, what could she say in court that would help us put him away?’
‘He still kidnapped her. That’s a charge,’ he argued.
‘And Suzie Keene, the victim, would be a fabulous witness… for the defence.’
‘I can’t get my head around it,’ Bryant said. ‘She was gone for a whole year. That’s like ten years to a kid. She wasn’t lonely. She didn’t feel isolated. He never hurt her. He never even touched her, so what the hell did he take her for?’
‘Bryant, on this occasion you are not alone in your confusion.’
‘See, that doesn’t give me any reassurance. I feel safer when I don’t get it but you do. It’s like when I was a kid and my mum—’
He shut up as her phone rang.
‘Probably lucky you didn’t get to finish that thought,’ she said, taking out her phone and hitting loudspeaker.
‘Penn,’ she answered. ‘Brilliant timing, as I think Bryant was about to compare me to his mother, which wouldn’t have done him…’
‘Boss, we’ve had a report. Bones have been found.’
Kim felt a cool shiver crawl down her spine.
‘Okay. Where are we going?’
Bryant was now listening intently.
‘That’s the thing, boss. They’ve been found at Hawne Park.’
‘In Halesowen? Didn’t Stacey mention that as one of—’