Page 111 of Child's Play

‘Jasper not coming in today but as long as he’s okay, we’ll see him when he’s feeling—’

‘Mrs Wicks, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I saw Jasper off to breakfast club as normal this morning.’

An intake of breath. ‘Mr Penn, Jasper is not in his classroom.’

Penn felt all kinds of sensations crawl over his body. He tried to stay calm.

‘Have you checked the library?’

Jasper often lost track of time once he got in there. More than once he’d missed the start of his lesson.

‘He’s not there,’ she said, and he knew it would have been the first place they would have checked.

‘What about the toilets. The sports hall, the science lab?’ he asked as his mind sprinted around the school building.

‘All checked, Mr Penn,’ she said, as her voice began to weaken. ‘And I can tell you that your brother is nowhere in this building.’

Penn ended the call, thrust the evidence bag at Travis and ran back to his car as fast as he could.

Eighty

‘What you got?’ Stacey asked, when the room suddenly fell silent. A tune fromThe Phantom of the Operahad ended abruptly, which Stacey had now learned meant something had the girl’s full attention.

She hoped the girl had something good so she could crack on with looking into the death of the Robinson boy; sad as it was he was no suspect in the case, whereas the people they were tracing could potentially strike again.

‘Give me just one minute,’ Tiff said, disappearing under the table.

The gentle whirr of the printer had been going constantly. Her temporary colleague liked paper, lots of it and had used half a ream printing out lists, timelines and attendance charts.

‘Got one,’ she shouted holding aloft three sheets of paper.

‘Got one what?’ Stacey asked. So far, they’d managed to write off approximately forty names between them through either death or emigration.

‘A kid named Damien Crouch. Came here two years running when he was nine and ten years old. Chess champion both years,’ she said, placing one sheet of paper on the table. ‘Met with our friendly counsellor on both occasions. No criminal record, not even a speeding ticket. Happily married and now works as a microbiologist in Kent,’ she said, discarding the second piece of paper.

‘Okay, what makes Damien Crouch interesting?’ Stacey asked. She’d shortlisted five or six similar cases herself.

Tiff held up the final piece of paper and waved it in the air.

‘Because this year he’s back again. With his six-and-a-half-year-old daughter.’

Eighty-One

Penn screeched to a halt as the school bus travelled down the single-track drive towards him.

Full of kids, it was headed to the swimming baths for second lesson. He knew because he’d packed Jasper’s trunks and his brother was supposed to be on that bus.

Instead of pulling over and allowing the bus to pass he parked right in front of it and got out of the car.

The driver was making angry signals as he pounded on the door to be let on.

‘I know these kids,’ he shouted, pointing to the door, understanding the man’s reluctance to allow him on board.

A teacher he knew tapped the driver on the shoulder and the doors opened.

‘Has he turned up yet?’ he asked, breathlessly.

She shook her head. ‘Have you tried his?…’