Page 35

CHAPTER 35

MATTHEW – D AY T HREE

Matthew’s eyes are getting tired. Spooling through the car park security tapes is essential but mind-numbing. Bad enough when you’re feeling on form. Purgatory when this exhausted.

It’s good to feel that he’s at least helping in some small way but more than an hour of spooling so far and – nothing. Not a glimpse of any girl, let alone his beautiful Amelie. Some of the tapes are in colour but there’s no flash of green dress. Nothing helpful at all.

For a horrible moment, Matthew wonders if Dawn, or whoever has Amelie, put her in the boot of their car. He takes a deep breath, leans back in his seat and closes his eyes to the imagined scenes of a struggle. Amelie terrified. Crying out for him and for Sally? No. That would have attracted attention, surely? According to the cameras that were working further along the canal path, it was very quiet. Hardly anyone about. But there were half a dozen or so cars in each of the two nearest car parks. Drivers parked nearby have been asked to come forward but only six have done so. They saw nothing. That’s the puzzle. Why the hell didn’t anyone see anything? It’s so infuriating that the schoolboy who finally gave a statement over the shopping trolley death didn’t see who Amelie was talking to. Equally infuriating that someone put that bag over the security camera near the shop.

‘You OK? Fancy another coffee?’ Jack, the detective alongside Matthew, reviewing footage on a second screen, suddenly leans back in his chair. He turns to share a small smile.

Matthew is grateful for the company. Jack must need the overtime to be here this late. They’ve said they’ll keep going until midnight. Matthew won’t be allowed to stay unsupervised. He nods to Jack over the coffee offer, then immediately regrets the decision as the detective stands, stretches and heads for the door. It will be appalling instant coffee. Cheap brand. He almost calls out to change his decision but stops himself as he watches the guy leave the room. He’s remembering Amelie watching him use the espresso machine at home.

When will I be allowed to have coffee, Daddy?

Who cares what kind of coffee he gets. Matthew suddenly recalls that awful panic attack in the car and takes deep breaths to calm himself. Must not let the dark pictures and the dark imaginings take over his mind.

He stands and walks around the small room as if to stretch his legs but really to try to calm his thoughts. The problem is the overthinking. Involuntarily but compulsively raking over so many memories. The lovely ones are comforting, of course. Amelie out on her swing with her hair blowing in the wind. Amelie up on his shoulders on walks when she was smaller. But the problem is the difficult times are also creeping into his thoughts now; all the times he’s got it wrong with Amelie. Impatient with her constant questions when she was a toddler. Tutting and teasing her over the Barbie collection and the weird plastic ponies with neon hair. The obsession with Disney, watching the same films over and over. You can’t want to watch it again, Amelie. You know the words ... Hell’s bells. Even Daddy knows all the words. Oh – and the outfits. Nylon and sequins and garish fairy wands and crowns.

You can’t wear your fairy costume to bed, Amelie.

Why not?

He’s always adored his daughter. But he’s tortured now by the memories of cross words. Irritation. And so many things that have baffled him about parenthood. And now he’s wondering why didn’t he just go with the flow more? Why did he ever tut. Or tease. Or wish for the years to pass more quickly. Willing Amelie past the terrible twos, for instance.

A click of the door. Matthew turns his head to see the detective walking back into the room, moving very carefully with two mugs of coffee, steam drifting from the surface. Matthew takes his drink with a smile, blows on the surface. He sips and it is every bit as terrible as he feared. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. Tough time for you.’ A pause. ‘So you and the boss used to work together?’

‘Yes. We trained together, actually. A long time ago.’

‘So was she always like this?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Sleeping bag in the office. Workaholic.’

‘Driven, I think, is the word she uses.’ Matthew didn’t know Mel was staying on site.

They both smile. Matthew is thinking of their younger selves. Him and Mel back in uniform before they had any idea how their lives would work out. Both of them determined to earn transfers into CID. Neither of them imagining that he would end up outside the force. A private investigator.

He found it very tough at first. Civvy street. There weren’t always good cases going. At first he turned down any work collecting evidence for divorces. But he soon had to climb down. Sometimes cash flow meant he had no choice. And then he had started working occasionally with Mel. Liaising quietly in the background. A sort of advisor. Sounding board on big cases. And then finally in recent months she persuaded him to rejoin the force. On the new team she’s to rebuild in Cornwall. It was in the papers, some of them referencing back to the case that led to him leaving the force. Does that have anything to do with Amelie’s abduction? Did Dawn Meadows see the coverage?

‘You OK? Is the coffee OK?’

‘Sorry. Mind wandering. The coffee’s fine.’

‘We will keep going until we find her. Whatever it takes.’ The detective’s expression is suddenly very serious and they both keep very still.

‘Thank you.’ Matthew has to clear his throat. ‘I appreciate that. Right. Let’s get back to it then.’ Matthew sits down. Tries to find a small smile of encouragement. And gratitude. He starts to scroll and almost immediately sees it.

At first he thinks it’s his imagination. Wanting to see something. But he rewinds and there it is again. The tiniest flash of green on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. He rewinds a second time, freezing the shot as the green appears. Infuriatingly there’s nothing much in shot or in focus. The frame shows a flash of what might be the back of a figure close to the camera. A man? Hard to be sure because it moves immediately out of shot and is out of focus. But there is definitely something green, something that could be green fabric just moving in and then immediately out of shot. Also what looks like a foot in a trainer. A white trainer with stars on it, just like Amelie’s. Again – not quite in focus.

‘What about this? Does that look like green material to you? Could that be a green dress? Someone wearing a green dress? And trainers. White trainers.’

The sergeant moves across to his screen and Matthew rewinds the sequence several times. The sergeant pulls a face. ‘Hard to say. Out of focus. I guess we can try to get it enhanced. But it could be a green dress. Just caught on the periphery of the camera.’ The detective pauses. ‘Almost swinging past, wouldn’t you say? Like the foot. Moving quite fast across the camera?’ A pause. ‘As if someone’ – he pauses – ‘is being carried maybe?’

‘Yes. I agree. I tell you what’ – Matthew’s mind is back into professional gear, adrenaline starting to pump – ‘I doubt we’re going to get much from the enhancement but let’s zoom in and take the registrations of all the cars in the near vicinity of this. Check them all out. The owners. The drivers. We need to consider them all as witnesses. Or suspects. Worth a shot?’

‘Always worth a shot.’ The detective’s expression is more animated and he takes out his notebook to start writing down the number plates as Matthew zooms and freezes each frame, calling out the letters and numbers from each of the nearby cars.

After a time the detective excuses himself to go to the toilet and, alone at last, Matthew plays the short sequence of green fabric flashing across the corner of the shot with the trainer with stars on. He watches it over and over and over. It’s her. He’s sure of it.