SEVENTY-ONE

Kate

SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012

They’d been ushered through to an interview room when she and the newspaper’s lawyer arrived, and she sat drumming her fingers on the table in front of her. The lawyer cleared her throat and she stopped. “Sorry, nerves,” she said.

Andy Sinclair smiled his apology for keeping them waiting as he entered.

“Thanks for coming, Kate,” he said. “It’s important we get your statement. Have you brought the tape?”

They sat and listened to Emma’s misery in silence.

“Have you spoken to Emma yet?” she asked as he bagged the tape up and labeled it.

“No. We’re talking to a psychologist about the best approach. And listening to this in full, I am sure we don’t want to rush into something and have it blow up in our faces. She needs careful handling.

“Now then . . .” He got down to business.

Kate took a breath and related her conversations with Emma on the Boys’ Brigade wall and in the car for Sinclair’s tape.

It was a strange feeling, being on the other side of an interview, and she interrupted Sinclair a couple of times to rephrase questions for him.

“Thanks, Kate. Think I’ve got this,” he said and grinned. Still friends, then, she thought.

He asked why she’d been at the reunion in the first place. “You’re not from round there, are you?”

“No, I was working; trying to find people who lived in the area and might have known something about how Alice ended up in Howard Street. About who might have taken her.”

“Right. So you dug out your eighties disguise and headed in there?” he said. “Very resourceful.”

“I thought you might be there, too,” she said.

“Spangles aren’t really my thing . . .” he said. And they both laughed, breaking the tension in the room.

“Now then, moving on . . .” he said. “What else do you know about the Massingham household at 63 Howard Street?”

Oh dear, can of worms’ time, Kate told herself. Keep to the simple stuff.

“What you know, I imagine,” she said. “Emma lived there with her mother, Jude Massingham, and another lodger, Barbara Walker. Barbara lives over the road now. Number 16. You went to see her—or one of your blokes did.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said and underlined something heavily in his notes.

“Barbara said there was a boyfriend there all the time. Jude’s boyfriend. Will Burnside,” Kate offered, spelling the surname for the officer.

“Right, thanks for that,” Sinclair said, flicking through the file. “Okay. We know the house belonged to a man called Alistair Soames. He’s got form. Sex offender. Minor stuff. Touching women on the tube, hands up skirts, that kind of thing. Put on probation in the late seventies, it says. Just before he bought the Howard Street houses.”

“A convicted sex offender?” Kate said. “I went to see him a couple of weeks ago.”

Sinclair’s eyes widened.

“He lives in a seedy flat in south London,” Kate said. “I tracked him down to see if he knew anything about the case.”

“Bloody hell, Kate, is there nowhere you haven’t been?” Sinclair said.

Kate glanced quickly at the lawyer, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. She was sure Andy Sinclair had clocked it.

“The thing is, Andy,” Kate began, “Soames gave us some photos from the eighties—to help identify people—and there was an envelope of Polaroids.”

He looked interested.

“The pictures are of women and girls who look like they’ve been drugged,” she said. “You can see Soames in some of the pictures.”

Sinclair pushed his chair back and whistled softly to himself.

“And I suppose you still have these photos?”

Kate reached into her bag and pulled out the envelope. She spread the Polaroids on the table.

DI Sinclair and Kate studied each face carefully, reverently. Giving the victims the attention they deserved.

Kate was wondering if he would recognize Barbara Walker, and she searched for her in the pictures. But another face came into focus. She stabbed her finger at a photograph and twisted it round to see it better.

“My God, it’s Emma,” she said. “Emma,” she repeated. She looked away to compose herself.

Sinclair had picked up the picture and was studying it. “This is our girl?”

“Yes, I am sure. I spent most of yesterday evening looking at her,” she said, then blew her nose. “Sorry.”

•   •   •

She was sipping a consoling cup of tea when a young copper put his head round the door.

“Sir, there’s a woman—actually, a couple—to see you. They’re in the front office.”

“What’s it about, Clive?” Andy Sinclair said. “Can it wait?”

“Not sure, sir. Says it’s about the baby.”

Kate and Andy both snapped round to look at him properly.

“Who are they?” Sinclair asked. “Names, Clive.”

“Emma and Paul Simmonds,” he said, consulting a piece of paper in his hand.

“Bloody hell,” Sinclair said. “Put them in interview room 9. And give them a cup of tea or something. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Kate looked at him. “She’s come to you. She’s got something to say. God, don’t suppose I could . . . ?” She’d heard of colleagues being allowed to watch interviews through one-way mirrors.

“Forget it, Kate. This is a police matter,” Sinclair said. “We’ll talk later.”

She picked up her things and started shoveling them into her bag.

“Hang on,” he said. “Leave the Polaroids. We’re going to need them.”