Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘We’ve ordered up a helicopter too.’ Holden was conscious that she sounded like she was making excuses. Maybe she was! After all, why on earth was she here, knocking on Vickie’s door when David – maybe the murderer, or at least the key to the murderer – was out there on the run? The 12-year-old with black hair, white face and pretty much black everything else was staring at her like she was a piece of particularly smelly dog shit. Holden felt embarrassed.

Fox intervened. ‘Do you mind if we come in for a few minutes?’

‘I suppose not.’ Vickie shrugged and retreated inside, leaving them to follow. Keeping the police waiting while she decided whether to let them in had, apparently, stopped being fun.

Vickie sat down in one of the armchairs in the living room, but said nothing. Holden sat down opposite on the sofa, while Fox sat to her left in the other armchair. Holden wasn’t quite sure what it was she was going to ask, except she couldn’t help feeling that Vickie and Maureen hadn’t, between the two of them, been telling her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

It was Vickie who eventually broke the silence: ‘My Mum’ll kill me if I don’t do my homework.’

‘Good for her.’

Silence again. It was a game. Like staring at each other – the first to blink loses. They could both feel it, and Fox wondered if Holden had forgotten that Vickie was a minor and also (as far as he was aware) not a suspect. Vickie, however, was interested only in winning. She was saying nothing more. Not until the bitch opposite asked her a question.

‘Has David been in touch?’ the bitch said eventually.

‘No,’ Vickie lied.

‘Why don’t you ring him now?’ the bitch pressed.

‘Ring him? Why would he answer?’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’ The bitch leant forward, unblinking. ‘Humour me, Vickie. Ring him.’

Vickie reluctantly unfolded her hand from around her mobile and made the call. She put it on loudspeaker. They all heard it ring twice, and then the call was killed. David, it seemed, did not want to speak to his adopted sister.

‘Tell me what really happened at Charlton-on-Otmoor.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, after they took the photos of you and Ania dressed as schoolgirls.’

‘I told you, I got a headache, so my dad drove me home.’

‘What caused the headache?’

Fox’s mobile rang. Holden made a face that Medusa would have been proud of. But she waited nevertheless.

‘He’s not at the scout camp,’ Fox reported.

‘I want you to go.’ Vickie stood up as she said this, and her voice was wobbly. She rubbed her right eye, smearing mascara across her cheek as she did so. ‘I want you to go and find him.’

Maureen had pinned her hopes on David being at the Youlbury Scout Centre. If he had gone off camping somewhere nearby, this had to be the obvious place, surely. The last time Maureen had been there was eight years ago, but she remembered it like it was yesterday. How could she not? The only problem was she kept expecting that bloody scoutmaster, Peabody, to suddenly materialize from behind the next tree or bush, with his moustache, beaky nose, and sweaty forehead. She looked around and tried to concentrate. There were ten of them out looking for David – two constables, six community support officers, Lawson and herself. But they had found no sign of him. Mind you, there were loads of signs of people having camped, but that meant nothing. People were always camping there, every weekend, and during the weeks often enough. So one lone person was hardly going to leave an unmistakeable trail. To know that David had been there, they would need to find something that belonged to him, or maybe one of his empty baked bean cans. She had told the police about his baked beans, and how they were bound to be Heinz, but they had found nothing, and were now gathered in a group while Lawson and the two uniformed constables discussed what to do next.

It was as she watched them, with a sense of growing despair, that she had her moment of enlightenment. She shouted across the clearing. ‘You’re wasting time here!’ Nine pairs of eyes swivelled to look at her. Given that it was she who had insisted this was the best place to look for him, this wasn’t going to win her any favours or friends.

But Maureen didn’t care, because suddenly it had al

l become only too clear. Of course he wouldn’t have slept here. It was the last place he would have slept. He had run away from here the last time, ran away from the bullying boys and that bloody little Hitler, to sleep on his own, well away from them all. That was what had brought it all to a head. That was why he had been expelled by that bastard Peabody. Because Peabody had had to spend half the night looking for David in the pouring rain, and at the end of it they had found him asleep and dry in an old brick-built shed near the Jarn Mound. The Jarn! Of course! Maureen felt an almost physical leap of hope. That was where he would have slept if he had come up here. She would find him there. And then he would be safe.

It was the sound of the helicopter that caused him to panic. He was sitting in his den, with his arms wrapped tightly round his knees and his rucksack ready and packed. He was sitting and waiting because that was what Mother had told him to do. ‘Keep calm and wait for me.’

Unlike Mum, who had left four voice messages, and in the last one told him to give himself up. Give himself up! Like a criminal. That was it. She and the police thought he was a criminal, and they were hunting him down. Like Tommy Lee Jones hunting down Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. He loved that film, but now it had come to life and he was in it, and he was the one fleeing for his life. And the woman who claimed to be his mum was Tommy Lee Jones.

And now, up above, he could hear a helicopter. He waited and listened. He knew that was what he had to do. To wait until the helicopter had passed over, and then to start running.

He stood up, hefted the rucksack onto his back, and waited. And then, as the helicopter’s engine faded into the distance, he began to run hell for leather. He wasn’t quite sure where he was going, but he knew which direction the main road was, and he knew he had to get there if he was ever to meet up with Mother.

‘Here’s your tea, Constable.’