Page 10

NINE

Evening was falling, and Gina sipped her fruit tea as she waited for Rona and her daughter to be interviewed.

Jacob entered the kitchen. ‘We have Rona’s statement, now it’s time to speak to her daughter. Shall we keep them in the family room?’ He poured himself a coffee.

‘Yes. We want her to feel at ease. It’s not going to be comfortable for her. I just hope she can help us.’ Gina paused. ‘Is there someone with them?’

Jacob nodded. ‘PC Benton is specially trained in this field. She will be helping them through the investigation and assisting with follow-up help for Molly and Rona if needed.’

‘Great. I can’t stop thinking about that girl in the photo.’

Detective Constable Harry O’Connor ran in, light from above bouncing off his shiny head. ‘Guv, they found something at the railway bridge.’

‘What is it?’

‘A smashed-up phone. A train had gone over it so it’s not recoverable, but there was another photo and it’s of our dead man and the same girl.’

He turned his phone around to show Gina and she felt her legs turn jelly-like. The sight of the same skinny, pale girl, again with her hair flopped over her face. This time she was wearing a long blue dress while sitting hugging her knees on a clean bed. Gina couldn’t see any of her facial features except her round chin and a forced-looking smile. Next to her was their John Doe holding one hand out as he took the selfie, a smile on his face, his other arm around her shoulders. The girl was clutching something – it was the red cupcake scarf.

‘Get the team gathered in the incident room for a briefing. As soon as I’ve spoken to Molly, we need to formulate a plan. Call everyone in. Any planned days off are now cancelled.’

Her worst fears had been confirmed.

She placed her drink on the counter and beckoned Jacob to follow her to the family room. She walked in first to find Rona sitting on the couch talking to her daughter and PC Benton sitting in a chair near the door. The slight girl placed her feet down on the floor, tapping them in her chunky trainers. Her baggy jeans rode up slightly, exposing a pink sock.

‘Hello, Molly. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us. Has your mum spoken to you yet?’

The girl nodded and parted her straight, blonde fringe. ‘She said it’s about Calvin.’

Gina watched as Jacob made a note. John Doe had been careful to make sure he used Calvin’s name while in the library. ‘It is, but his name wasn’t Calvin.’

‘Mum said.’ The girl gripped her mother’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you, Mum.’

‘It’s okay, love. Just tell them all you know.’

‘Mum said he’s dead.’

‘That’s right,’ Gina replied.

‘What about his daughter?’

‘We are very concerned for her right now, and we need to find out who this man is so we can help her. Can you tell me about him?’

Molly swallowed and looked into her lap. ‘He told me she needed a friend as she couldn’t leave the house, and he said she liked reading, too, as he was getting books out for her. I…’

‘It’s okay, Molly.’ Rona nodded for Molly to continue.

Molly stood and grabbed her hair as she walked over to the door and sobbed.

‘What is it, love?’ Rona followed Molly and hugged her. ‘You can tell me anything.’

‘I don’t want to tell you. I hate myself.’

‘Tell me what?’

Gina tilted her head. ‘You’re doing really well, Molly, and we are so grateful you are telling us this as it will help us a lot. I can see this is hard for you. Can we get you anything?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I just want this over with.’

Molly and Rona both sat back down, and Molly turned to face Gina, who could see the pain etched in the girl’s face. ‘He came in a few weeks ago when you weren’t at the library, Mum. I can’t remember when. Maybe it was the beginning of August. I was just reading after school for a bit, actually I was meant to meet Paul from school to do homework, but he bailed on me.’

‘Did that creep hurt you?’ Rona clenched her fists.

Molly slammed her hand on the coffee table. ‘I need to tell this my way, okay?’

Rona nodded and pulled out a scrunched-up tissue from her pocket, then dabbed the corners of her eyes.

‘When he came into the library that day, he gave me his number. He said his daughter had been really depressed and that he’d told her about me. He said she was really excited to meet me. I asked for her number, too, but he said she didn’t have a phone. He said that she was really sick and that phones made her worse – something to do with microwaves – but she could use his phone for a little while. I didn’t really understand.’

Rage surged inside Gina, but she managed to contain it as Jacob continued noting everything down. ‘What happened next?’

‘We messaged back and forth over the next few days. He sent me photos of their dog and their house, and he asked if I’d like to watch a film and have a takeaway with his daughter one night. I said yes.’

‘Did he mention her name?’ Gina hoped he did.

‘Yes, her name is Luna.’

‘Did he say how old she is?’

‘No, just that she was about my age and he wanted us to be friends.’

‘And after you and he messaged, what happened then?’

Molly began to scratch her head, then she hunched over, elbows on her knees. ‘Mum, I didn’t mean for it to happen.’

Rona wrapped an arm around her daughter. ‘Whatever happened is not your fault, okay?’

The girl sat back up and nodded, her red, puffy eyes stark. ‘He said he’d pick me up one evening that weekend. I waited at the bus stop on Cleevesford High Street. He pulled up and I got in his car. He was meant to bring the dog with him – he messaged to say he’d just left the park with the dog. I didn’t think about it at first, but as soon as he pulled off, I thought, where is the dog ? I asked him and he laughed, saying he’d dropped the dog off at a friend’s house. It didn’t make sense. He pulled over on a country lane and I asked him why. That’s when he…’

‘You’re doing really well, love.’ Rona’s hands were shaking.

‘He told me he really liked me and that he thought that I liked him, too. I tried to laugh it off, and I said that Luna would be waiting for us. He put his hand on my leg and I froze. I looked around and it was almost dark. There were just country lanes ahead and behind and I didn’t know how I’d get home if I ran out of the car.’

Rona sniffed. ‘You can call me anytime from anywhere, you know that. I will always come.’

‘I know, but I knew you’d be angry that I got in his car, especially as I knew you didn’t like him. When I asked if Luna was expecting us, he shrugged like she suddenly didn’t matter. I knew then that something was seriously wrong. He grabbed me, but I hit him, then I opened the car door and ran. He tried to chase me, but I hid behind a tree for about an hour. He kept shouting for me to come back; that he only wanted me to go to his house to meet Luna, that she was expecting me. A part of me felt like I’d gone way over the top. He called again, saying he didn’t mean to accidentally touch my leg, and to come back, that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to Cleevesford, and that he’d take me straight home if I wanted him to. I felt stupid by this time. My mind kept replaying when he’d touched me and I thought that maybe it was an accident, but I didn’t want to be near him so I kept quiet. Eventually he left.’

‘Where did you go then?’ Gina wondered how Molly had got home.

‘I kept walking in the dark until I found a road sign.’

‘And which road did you end up on?’

‘Hereford Lane. I called Paul, begging him to come and get me. Paul is seventeen and he has a car. He picked me up and he dropped me home. I told him that I’d been seeing a friend and I couldn’t find a bus stop. He looked at me like I was on another planet, but he was also meeting a boy he fancied so he was eager to drop me off. Mum,’ – she turned to Rona – ‘you were at Betty’s house.’

Rona piped up. ‘Betty is my neighbour. She lost her husband earlier this year and I have been spending a lot of time with her.’

‘Anyway, when Paul dropped me off, I had a shower and went to bed, and it was then I decided I didn’t want to meet up with Luna or see Calvin again. I was angry with myself for getting into his car, and I was so ashamed because even I know it was a stupid thing to do, but I trusted him. After that night, all I wanted to do was forget about it and move on.’

Gina cleared her drying throat. Her mind had been whirring with how terrified Molly must have felt. ‘Molly, you’ve been through a traumatic event. PC Benton here’ – she nodded to the PC – ‘will inform you of what help there is available because you’ve been through a lot.’ Gina paused. ‘Do you still have the messages he sent you?’

‘I deleted them as I didn’t want Mum to see them. I also got a new phone with a new number three weeks ago. I downloaded a few things onto my computer to transfer over, but did a factory reset on the old one, which I sold to a second-hand shop.’

‘Was it a contract phone?’ Gina knew they could contact the service provider for the messages, and that would give them a date of when Molly was in John Doe’s car.

Molly looked at her mum and shrugged.

Rona nodded. ‘Yes, it was.’

Gina let out a slow breath. ‘I’ll get a police officer to take those details when we’ve finished here, if that’s okay?’ She hoped they could bring them closer to identifying the man and finding the girl but realistically, she knew she wouldn’t have that information immediately.

‘Of course,’ Molly said. ‘I just hope that Luna is okay.’

Molly’s shoulders slumped again and she hunched over. ‘Wait, I saved a photo of Luna that he sent me. I have it on my phone.’ She thumbed through the menus until her photos came up, then she passed the phone to Gina.

Gina looked at the photo of the young girl sitting in the wheelchair. Her dark hair had been neatly tied back with a bow, and she had the widest smile. Everything about the teenager looked glossy, which was a far cry from the photos they’d found at the crime scene.

It wasn’t the same girl.

There was no birthmark on the girl’s cheek and the photo was so crisp, with just the right amount of background blur, that Gina could tell it had been professionally taken. This was not the girl in the photo but it was a lead.

‘Could you please send me this photo when we finish speaking?’

Molly nodded.

‘Do you remember what type of car he was driving?’

‘It was small and blue. I don’t know the make.’

Gina knew that John Doe had been found in a stolen blue Ford Fiesta. ‘Can you remember anything else he said; anything about where he might live or his home life, hobbies, interests?’

‘I think he said that Luna likes the horses that were in the nearby field. I don’t know which field. He also said they play chess and that she’s really good, but she still rarely beat him. I found what he said next a bit weird: he said he would never allow her to beat him, that to win, you had to plan several moves ahead, and that Luna couldn’t even plan her next one.’

‘Did he ever mention Luna’s mother?’

‘She left them, that’s all he said. I didn’t like what he said next, but I thought that maybe she’d run off with someone else. He called her a slag.’