Feeling for my clothes, I dress before I can change my mind.
II
Out in the hallway, tiptoeing towards the stairs, it’s impossible to keep my movements silent. Each floorboard creaks like it’s trying to wake the dead.
Passing my parents’ room, I hear their snores and peek inside.
I’m amazed at how vulnerable they look. So easy for someone to creep in and slash their throats while they sleep. That’s a terrible thought, and yet I can’t shake it. I want to slip under the covers and worm between them, but there’s far too much at stake.
When I step past their door towards the stairs I realize with a lurch that somehow I’ve turned myself around and am heading back to my own room. The discovery unbalances me. Putting a hand to the wall, I wait for my dizziness to fade.
Now, another thought strikes me. How did my parents fall asleep so quickly? Only a handful of minutes have passed since they were in my room, and yet here they are, deep in slumber. How did they manage to wash, change into their nightclothes and climb into bed, all in such a short space of time?
Did I fall asleep? Moments after they walked out, I saw the coins on my pillow. I remember scooping them up and flinging them into the garden. Straight after that, I saw the 4x4.
My scalp contracts. It’s not the first time I’ve suffered a lapse like this. Shaking my head, I hurry down the stairs. When I open the front door and emerge, blinking, into bright sunlight, I can hardly catch my breath. Somehow, day has replaced night. Not only that, I’m wearing different clothes – shorts and T-shirt instead of jumper and jeans. The only constant is the key in my pocket – the key that will unlock the door beneath the Gingerbread House and take me right back to my first meeting with Gretel.
Mairéad
Day 1
I
It’s not much of a break, but it’s something. Police officers sent to the Royal Princess, a smart thirties-built hotel a few hundred yards from the Marshall Court, notice that one of its security cameras has a direct view of East Overcliff Drive.
They quickly review the footage. Between 14.10 and 14.18 – from Elissa’s last known sighting until two minutes after the first emergency call – fourteen white vans pass the hotel. Most are shiny new models. Only a handful could be reliably described as ‘old and pretty beat-up’. Due to the camera angle, officers can’t make out registration numbers, but they snap images of the vans and forward them to colleagues at the Marshall Court. Within a few minutes, Charles Kiser positively IDs one of them.
The vehicle’s an old Bedford CF, a British-built panel van manufactured between 1969 and 1988. Mairéad’s older colleagues are familiar with it: back in the eighties, CFs were commonly used as prisoner transports and riot vans. This one, somebody tells her, looks like the updated model introduced in 1980. There can’t be more than a few hundred left on the road.
Because the council has no operational cameras on East Overcliff Drive, the officers at Bournemouth’s CCTV control room have so far drawn a blank. But now they have a specific vehicle to hunt, and within ten minutes they get their first reward: at 14.15, a camera on St Swithun’s Road recorded the van heading north.
Now, they have a number plate too. It’s immediately punched into ANPR, the national network of number-plate-recognition cameras. Almost instantly, the system detects the suspect van and shows its route: straight up the A338 to Downton, six miles south of Salisbury, where it disappears. From Bournemouth, the journey takes thirty-seven minutes. The last camera captures the van at 14.52.
In the investigation team, there’s a palpable shift of mood. Everybody knows that thirty-seven minutes driving is thirty-seven minutes where Elissa Mirzoyan probably hasn’t been assaulted, probably hasn’t been killed.
It’s now 15.40. They’re less than one hour behind again, but that forty-eight-minute lead means the van could be anywhere in a circle covering ten thousand square miles. And with every minute that passes, the circumference of the circle expands.
Neighbouring forces scramble to offer assistance. Traffic police equipped with mobile ANPR flood major roads inside the perimeter. NPAS helicopters are launched from Bournemouth, Almondsbury and Benton. Meanwhile, a check of the DVLA database shows that the Bedford’s number plate is linked to a different vehicle altogether: a Vauxhall Corsa registered to a seventy-eight-year-old woman in Waterlooville, Hampshire. PCSOs visit her bungalow, where they find the bemused woman, and also her car.
Across the country, airports, train stations and ferry ports are placed on high alert. In Salisbury, officers who drove Lena Mirzoyan home locate Elissa’s passport.
At 16.00, Mairéad holds her first press conference. Beforehand, she goes to the toilet and vomits. Conscious of her shocking appearance, she dusts her face with powder and pencils out the redness around her eyes.
Journalists pack the briefing room. Cameras beep and flash. Mairéad explains the timeline, shares further pictures of Elissa and blown-up stills of the van. She explains the route it took, its last-known location, and appeals directly to the public for information. Afterwards, she takes questions, answering as many as she can.
Over two hours have now passed since Elissa disappeared. Everyone knows what that means. She sees it in the eyes of the gathered journalists and afterwards in the faces of her own team. That image – of Elissa larking around in a red feather boa – haunts her throughout.
At 18.10, she updates the media again. By now, the story’s developed its own inertia. The press conference is broadcast live on Sky News and the BBC. No, they haven’t found Elissa. No, they’ve no further leads on the van. Yes, they’re trawling DVLA records, but the database, for model types of long-defunct manufacturers, is shot to shit.
An hour passes. Two more. Soon it’s 22.00.
A major incident room is established. Everyone looks forsaken. It’s Mairéad’s responsibility to maintain morale, but it’s desperately hard. The earlier momentum has all but drained away. This remains a missing-person investigation. How long before it becomes homicide?
II
At 01.00, Mairéad concedes she needs sleep. After an update with Karen Day, the PolSA she requested from Winfrith, she formally hands over to her OIC and goes outside to her car. Her stomach is cramping; her head thumps with fatigue. Her flesh feels like an army of insects is crawling around under the skin.
She stops at a twenty-four-hour pharmacy, then heads home. Scott is up, pacing about. He shakes his head when she staggers in.
‘It had to be me,’ she says softly. ‘It had to be.’
Her husband stares at her a long time before answering. ‘Hon,’ he says. ‘You can’t do this. You can’t.’ His tone is far more forgiving than she deserves. ‘You’re in no fit state to take it on.’
A lump forms in her throat. ‘She’s thirteen, Scott. I met her mum. The woman’s going out of her mind.’
His shoulders slump. And now he just looks weary, miserable. ‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘What about—’
‘I can handle this.’
‘That’s not the—’
‘I can handle it!’
She didn’t mean to shout. And now, suddenly, she can’t look at him. Throwing down her coat, she hurries up the stairs. In the bathroom, behind a locked door, she perches on the toilet. When she closes her eyes, she sees a girl in a red feather boa. She recalls Lena Mirzoyan’s words in the hotel manager’s office: This is Elissa. My daughter. My life.