Chapter 9
Henley’s reflection in the dented and scuffed lift door was distorted by the aging yellow and white ‘Meet the Met’ sticker.
She sighed wearily. The dark and puffy circles under her eyes were in stark contrast to the rest of her skin which was still benefiting from three weeks of Caribbean sunshine.
It had been a restless night, the rain ferocious against her windows and filled with toxic dreams of home invasions and Sian Fox-Carnell stealing her child.
Henley walked into the office with her dripping umbrella.
The motion sensor lights had stopped detecting activity months ago and the facilities team had shown no urgency in replacing them.
It saddened her that she felt safer in the dark, empty SCU than she did in her home.
Fifteen minutes later, Henley was standing in front of the map on the whiteboard, holding a steaming cup of coffee.
She picked up the yellow magnet that had been placed on Cullen Lane and rolled it in her free hand.
She’d given Ramouter forty-eight hours to decide to keep the case or not, but her gut told her the Ashcroft case did not fit.
As Ramouter had said, ‘There was too much violence.’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
The yellow magnet fell out of Henley’s hand and coffee sloshed from her cup as she spun around. She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the sound of the SCU becoming alive with activity.
Pellacia bent down and picked up the magnet.
‘Call you about what?’ she asked.
‘Sian Fox-Carnell. She turned up at your home, harassed you and I had to find out about it from a PC at Colindale.’
‘Fox-Carnell turning up on my street isn’t work related,’ said Henley.
‘Why are you down playing this?’ Pellacia exclaimed. ‘She was at your house, travelled across London to find you, to—’
‘To gloat. That’s all she wanted to do. Gloat and make it seem as though she’d got one over on me.’
‘You can’t see the danger?’
‘I was never in danger.’ Stanford and Eastwood’s chatter suddenly became audible in the office hallway. ‘And I can take care of myself.’
‘Christ, you make it sound as though I’m not allowed to be concerned about your welfare. I do have a duty of care when you’re inside these four walls and, whether you like it or not, outside of them too.’
Henley turned to face the far wall, unable to handle the hurt and concern that was etched on Pellacia’s face.
‘There must be a good reason why she missed curfew.’ Henley was eager to turn the conversation away from her. ‘I can’t imagine her willingly sacrificing the hundred grand that her parents gave the court and her freedom.’
‘I’m not really interested in what the reason is,’ Pellacia said coldly. ‘But I can’t ignore the fact that she came after you which means that all of us in the SCU have a target on our backs.’
‘It’s not just us though,’ said Stanford, shaking the rain off his mac and hanging it on the coat rack in the corner. ‘The woman turned up at Henley’s door when she was with her kid, and—’
‘Stanford, stop,’ Henley pleaded.
‘Emma was with you?’ Pellacia asked, shaking his head with disbelief.
‘Emma was … is fine,’ said Henley. ‘Fox-Carnell breached for a reason. That’s not just a problem for her lawyers and the CPS. It’s a concern for us too.’
‘I like the fighting spirit but what are we supposed to do?’ asked Stanford.
‘Are you worried that she’s going to rock up at your house next?’ Eastwood asked, sitting down at her desk and switching on her computer.
‘If she does, she better bring milk, because I’m out.’
‘All right enough,’ said Pellacia, his face stern and unyielding to Stanford’s attempt at levity.
He took a chair and brought it towards Eastwood’s desk.
‘We’ve got a lot to get through this morning.
You’re going to find on your desks a list of our current caseload and Eastwood should have a list of case transfer requests. ’
‘Just give me a sec.’ Eastwood ran to the printer and collected a large bundle.
‘Where’s the boy wonder?’ Stanford asked as he pointed at Ramouter’s empty desk.
‘En-route to King’s …’ Henley paused as she scanned the first page of the bundle that Eastwood had just placed in her hand. ‘Avon and Somerset, Cleveland Police?’
‘Police Scotland?’ Stanford exclaimed as he flicked through the pages in his hand. ‘These seriously haven’t just come in this week?’
‘No,’ said Eastwood as the sound of the intercom buzzer rang out. ‘These are all the requests we’ve received since January of this year.’
‘As you know, there was an internal review of the SCU after the Streeter case,’ said Pellacia.
‘You would have thought that having it in writing and I quote “the SCU’s performance, efficiency and effectiveness exceeds expectations” would have made some people happy but it wasn’t enough.
I was ordered to the Yard on Monday for a bollocking.
I was told that the SCU was being too selective and ignored legitimate transfer requests. ’
Stanford picked up a red pen and struck it dramatically across the page. ‘I’m sorry but a dirty nonce flashing in service station toilets in Bury St Edmunds is not a case for the SCU. Bunch of jokers.’
‘I agree but—’ Pellacia stopped midsentence as the office door suddenly swung open, slammed against the wall and Ezra ran into the office.
‘Ezra what’s going on?’ Henley asked.
‘I wanted to warn you,’ Ezra answered. ‘Two officers from the Met Intelligence Bureau are on their way to see you now. Right now.’ They could hear the lift hydraulics as it ascended.
‘I’d literally just walked in, when the buzzer went,’ Ezra’s eyes darted towards the door, ‘I opened it and there they were, looking like the Men in Black and they said they wanted to see you, Henley. I said that I didn’t know if you were in and that I wanted to see their cards.
The man accused me of obstructing so I dashed off as soon as I heard the lift open and—’
The door to the unit swung open for a second time.
Pellacia stood and straightened himself to his full height.
A white, stocky-built, bald-headed man in his late thirties, dressed sharply in a navy suit, walked in.
His partner, a tall Asian woman, her dark hair pulled tight into a bun and dressed similarly in a charcoal trouser suit with her white shirt buttoned up to the collar, was close behind.
Pellacia crossed quickly to the middle of the room, effectively blocking both officers from proceeding any further. ‘You are?’ he demanded. The male officer pressed his lips together as he shoved his hands into pockets and rolled back his shoulders.
‘DS Liam McLaren and this is DC Dao,’ he said.
‘It seems that you’ve both forgotten how to address a senior officer,’ Pellacia said sternly, taking a step towards McLaren.
‘I have no idea who you are,’ McLaren answered smugly.
‘I find that very difficult to believe, considering that you’re standing here in my unit. No one finds themselves here by accident.’
‘Ah, DCI Pellacia,’ DS McLaren replied with a tut and an overdramatic shake of the head.
‘What can I do for you and why have you turned up without notice?’
‘We’re dealing with the disappearance of Sian Fox-Carnell, sir,’ DC Dao replied in a clear effort to diffuse the tension.
‘And they sent you from the Met Intelligence Bureau to deal with some scrote breaching bail? Someone doesn’t like you two much,’ said Stanford.
DC Dao glanced over at Stanford, subtly gave him a side-eye and turned towards Henley who had remained in her seat, quietly observing the exchange.
‘The last recorded GPS entry from Fox-Carnell’s tag places her outside your home yesterday afternoon,’ DC Dao said to Henley. ‘We would like to discuss that meeting with you, ma’am.’
‘It wasn’t a meeting,’ Henley replied.
‘You may not call it a meeting but clearly something took place between the two of you that may have triggered her disappearance,’ said McLaren who clearly wasn’t used to sitting quietly on the sidelines.
‘Clearly something took place,’ Henley repeated disapprovingly. ‘But you should know better than to make assumptions and jump to conclusions.’
‘What I do know is that due to someone’s—’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something, sergeant,’ Henley cut in. She stepped away from Ezra and joined Pellacia. It had been a long time since Henley had found herself in a pissing match with an officer who didn’t respect her rank and her unit. She wasn’t having it.
‘Ma’am.’ The skin on DS McLaren’s neck flushed red, his contempt of Henley clear. ‘As I was saying, we’re—’
‘Assuming,’ Pellacia interrupted this time. ‘And that’s where investigations usually falter when detectives, out of their depth, fail to assess the facts.’
‘Ma’am,’ said DC Dao, almost apologetically. ‘As you can appreciate, the first seventy-two hours—’
‘Of a person’s disappearance are the most critical,’ recited Henley. ‘Maybe next time you’ll remember that when you decide to make statements and not ask actual questions.’
DS McLaren quietly fumed as DC Dao looked at him for instruction.
‘Unbelievable,’ muttered Pellacia, glaring at the two officers.
‘DS McLaren. DC Dao. Follow me,’ Henley ordered, stepping away from Pellacia, she picked up her phone from her desk and made her way towards the door.
The overhead light caught the dust particles in the air as Henley opened the greying blinds and pushed the windows open. The paint was flaking off the walls of the former multi-faith prayer room.
‘Ma’am,’ DS McLaren sat down on a chair that had seen better days, ‘Sian Fox-Carnell failed to return home. There has been no sighting of her, and no one has heard from her.’
‘What have her parents said about her disappearance?’ Henley asked.
‘Not much,’ said DC Dao. ‘Her mother is, I suppose, understandably quite frantic but if I’m honest, slightly paranoid, ma’am. She’s convinced that someone has taken her daughter.’
‘Why would she think that. Have there been threats?’
DC Dao shook her head.
‘According to Soteria, the electronic monitoring company, Fox-Carnell’s last movements were recorded at 5.03 p.m. at Brockley overground station, 5.14 p.m. at Joe’s coffee shop on Coulgate Road, 5.24 p.m. on Breakspears Road, which is where you live, and 5.41 p.m. on Mantle Road,’ said McLaren.
Henley pulled out her notebook and wrote down the times.
‘So, what happened?’ McLaren asked.
‘I was with my daughter when I was approached by Fox-Carnell,’ said Henley. ‘We weren’t far from home. Maybe three houses away.’
‘I wasn’t aware that you had a kid,’ McLaren said his features softening slightly. ‘How old is she?’
‘She’s three.’
‘If Soteria is correct, Fox-Carnell spent twenty-one minutes in your area,’ said McLaren. ‘Twenty-one minutes is a long time to spend with someone.’
‘I didn’t spend twenty-one minutes with her,’ Henley replied. ‘I spoke to her for no more than five minutes.’
‘What did you and Fox-Carnell talk about?’ said DC Dao.
‘My main priority was to protect my daughter,’ Henley said, clenching her right hand into a tight fist. ‘It’s not exactly a secret that this isn’t the first time that someone I’ve investigated has paid me a visit. I told Fox-Carnell to leave,’ said Henley. ‘I warned her.’
‘Warned her or threatened her?’ the DS asked.
Henley leaned forward in her chair. ‘What are you suggesting, DS McLaren?’
McLaren stared back at Henley wide-eyed with mock innocence. ‘I’m just asking the question, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I’ve got four kids, and I wouldn’t blame you if you’d been, what’s the best way to put it, physically forceful.’
‘I didn’t touch her. I warned her that she would find herself back inside if she came near me again. I then took my daughter and went inside my house.’
‘And you haven’t seen or had any communication from her since?’ McLaren asked.
‘No,’ Henley replied bluntly. ‘Now let me ask you a question. Do you seriously have no idea where Fox-Carnell is?’
McLaren’s face reddened. ‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Mantle Road at 5.48 p.m. was her last location?’
‘Presumably she was making her way back to Brockley station.’
‘I still don’t understand why you can’t track her or to be precise, her tag,’ said Henley. ‘Mantle Road shouldn’t be her last location?’
Henley caught the look that DC Dao gave DS McLaren as though she was requesting permission to speak.
‘DC Dao,’ Henley said sternly. ‘There’s a reason why MIB are involved in this case, and it’s got nothing to do with Fox-Carnell breaching her curfew.’
‘Yesterday, at 6.02 p.m., Soteria, the electronic monitoring company reached its data storage capacity,’ said DC Dao.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that for the past fifteen hours and thirty minutes, Soteria haven’t been able to record or view the movements of 12,892 people who are currently on tag, including Fox-Carnell.’
Henley leaned back in her seat, momentarily lost for words as she processed the enormity of DC Dao’s statement. The fact that there was an IT explanation for the fact that Sian’s current location was unknown didn’t appease Henley.
‘Fox-Carnell doesn’t know that Soteria has IT problems so it doesn’t stop her from complying with her bail conditions, which means that she’s either disappeared of her own volition or—’ said Henley.
‘Or something happened to her,’ McLaren concluded as he intensified his gaze on Henley. ‘Or someone did something to her, ma’am.’