‘Got one hit of the stolen Toyota passing by a front garden at 3.15 a.m., but then nothing.’
It was the fifth car to go missing from the same estate in a month.
‘I’ve put in a request for some mobile CCTV units to be positioned on the entry and exit points of the estate.’
Kim nodded her agreement and wondered, for the hundredth time, what kind of world they’d live in if the criminals used their intelligence and skills to do good.
‘Okay, make sure you get one placed at—’
Kim stopped speaking as Bryant’s phone rang.
He listened and then pushed the receiver towards her.
‘It’s Jack for you.’
Did no one ring her own phone anymore? Was all communication filtered through her colleague?
She reached across and hit the loudspeaker.
‘Go ahead, Jack,’ she said to the desk sergeant.
‘I’ve got another one, marm,’ he offered wearily.
Kim groaned. She didn’t need any explanation. Anniversaries brought out the weirdos. The more the media coverage, the more confessions they received, and in the last two days, three men and one woman had come in to confess to the abduction of Melody Jones. The last one hadn’t done his sums right and had no answer when Penn had asked how he’d managed to pull it off when he’d only been two and a half years old himself.
Kim looked around the room. ‘Okay, by my count it’s Stacey’s turn to…’
‘Only wants you, marm. He really insists you’re going to want to hear him out.’
Kim felt herself stiffen. If there was one thing she hated more than weirdos wasting their time, it was the ones who insisted on wasting hers.
‘Okay, Jack, put him in interview room one. I’ll be down shortly.’
Bryant filled her mug with strong black coffee. ‘Keeps her calm,’ he said to the others.
‘You wish,’ Kim said, taking the drink from him.
She had a mind to make their visitor wait, but she couldn’t get on with her day until she’d listened and discredited confessor number five.
As she headed down the stairs, coffee in hand, she considered just how many pieces of her mind she was going to give him for wasting their time.
She opened the door and stepped in, immediately hiding her surprise.
It wasn’t news to her that you couldn’t deduce anything by appearance. There was no photofit for a criminal, a murderer, a paedophile or someone suffering from mental illness. She knew that, but the man standing before her appeared to be none of the above.
She guessed him to be mid-fifties. He had salt-and-pepper hair cut tidily around an attractive, tanned face.
His light-blue shirt was a quality brand that fitted him perfectly and was tucked into belted black trousers. He stood a couple of inches higher than her own five foot nine, and he appeared to have an athletic build.
‘Steven Harte,’ he said, thrusting out his hand as though they were meeting at some kind of conference.
She ignored the hand and sat down.
‘Please take a seat, Mr Harte, and tell me what you profess to know about the abduction of Melody Jones.’
‘Profess?’ he asked, frowning, as he took a seat.
‘You’re our fifth this week, so please forgive my suspicion.’
The frown remained.
‘But why would someone confess to something they didn’t do?’
‘Yes quite, Mr Harte, why would they?’
‘I’m not here with any kind of false confession, DI Stone. I have information that will lead you straight to her.’
His voice was calm and measured if a little surprised that he was being doubted.
Kim liked to understand the motivation of people’s actions. Common sense told her the man before her was a liar, just like the four previous confessors, although he wasn’t claiming to have actually abducted her.
So far, they’d had a sixty-five-year-old male who came in and confessed to every major crime. The next one had been a confirmed delusional; the third one, a female, had been a reporter from Berkshire trying to learn more about the case for a feature she was writing; and the fourth had been Penn’s maths genius who had pissed off someone from a rival gang and thought the police station was the safest place for him until it died down.
Their confessions had all been debunked, and they’d been asked to leave once she’d understood their motives for lying.
And that was all she wanted from this guy before she showed him the door.
‘So, what date was Melody Jones taken?’
‘Sixteenth of August in 1996.’
‘What time?’
‘Three o’clock.’
‘From where?’ Kim asked.
She didn’t need any paperwork to check his answers. She now knew them by heart.
‘The playground at the edge of Hollytree Estate.’
‘And what was she wearing?’
The man closed his eyes. A little smile tugged at his lips as though recalling a fond memory. Kim felt nausea swirl in her stomach.
‘Little pink leggings. I think they were called pedal pushers. They had blue spots on. Her vest top was rainbow stripes. It was a hot day.’ He frowned. ‘She didn’t have any lotion on.’
Kim ignored the disapproval in his voice and focused on his answers. Everything he’d answered so far was correct. It was also public record. There was no mention of the silver chain with a heart that had been on her wrist. A present from her grandmother with her initials engraved on the heart. That detail had never been released.
‘Tell me something that you couldn’t have found out by reading the thousands of news reports available.’
He smiled and traced imaginary circles on the table.
‘And where would be the fun in that?’
Evasion.
Kim’s heart rate began to slow as his motivations became clear. For a minute, he’d had her going with his easy and accurate recall of the details, but his failure to offer anything extra demonstrated he was just another crackpot. A well-dressed, presentable crackpot but not all crackpots came from Hollytree. She had spent the first six years of her life in that place.
‘You will find out everything eventually, Inspector, but it’ll be on my terms.’
‘There are no terms, Mr Harte, unless you want to take me to the body. You drive, I’ll dig.’
He smiled. ‘All in good time, but you’re about to be faced with a more urgent problem and—’
‘I think you’ve taken enough of my time already, Mr Harte,’ she said, pushing back her chair. ‘I now understand your motivation for this confession. You want to play games with the police. You want some kind of fame off the back of a family’s misery, and you expect us to play along with the false hope that we’ll recover Melody’s body.’
Again, that tolerant smile but no words.
‘I don’t know why you need this kind of attention, Mr Harte, but you’re not going to get it here.’
She headed to the door, opened it and turned back.
‘The desk sergeant will show you out.’
She stormed back up the stairs, even more annoyed with this waster than the others. This one had wanted nothing more than to get the attention of the police and engage them in some sort of twisted game.
‘I swear, Bryant, you’re taking the next one,’ she growled, entering the squad room.