Vanished

Chapter 10

Jack checked his watch. It had been fifteen minutes since Ridley had said he was twenty minutes away and Jack knew that this ETA would be accurate almost to the second. Jack paced Avril Jenkins’ kitchen, peering down into the dark cellar every now and then, in anticipation of getting back down there and beginning to process this brand new, deeply intriguing space. Mal paced outside, chomping at the bit for it to be his turn to venture down into the Aladdin’s cave.

When Jack’s mobile pinged to say that he had a new email, he was expecting a routine update in connection with the progress of the case. What he wasn’t expecting, was an email plus attachment from Kevin, the building applications manager at Kingston Council:

The attachment was a PDF showing the existing five-acre plot of land owned by Avril, with the layout of the house and garden being exactly as expected. However, beyond the wall at the rear of the garden, was an expanse of woodland, perhaps three acres in size, that was also part of the property.

Jack immediately called Kevin and asked him to confirm that this was correct. Kevin explained that, according to the notes, Frederick Jenkins had purchased the woodland back in 2009 because his neighbour wanted to buy it and build a second house for his elderly parents. To prevent this from happening, Frederick had outbid the neighbour in order to maintain the privacy of his own back garden. Jack couldn’t believe it: the house and garden that they did know about had already provided so much information, so what the hell would three acres of woodland reveal? It was at this moment that Ridley walked in, raring to go.

Once Jack had brought him up to speed about the woodland, he organised the day ahead. ‘OK. So the cellar has had the preliminary once-over from Mal and it’s safe and secure, right? Then let’s do the same with the woodland and, in the meantime, I’ll let SOCO do their preliminary on the cellar. I’ll get twenty or so uniforms, you get Anik and Laura.’

Within ten minutes, Ridley had secured fourteen uniformed officers and half an hour after that they turned up in a police van, kitted out with police tape, wellies, long search-sticks and several metal detectors.

The woodland area was wild and untended. It wasn’t a throughway to anywhere, and it was protected on all sides by either a tall wooden fence or high chicken-wire secured against intermittent concrete posts. However, they could now also see the narrow footpath mentioned by Mr Warton, which cut between Avril’s property and the golf course. In a couple of places, the chicken-wire fence had been damaged, allowing curious walkers to stray onto Avril’s property. Collecting forensic evidence from public spaces was a hellish job and this security breach would make their lives far more difficult. Jack was hoping that if this woodland had anything to reveal, it would be underground.

The uniformed officers worked in a line, maintaining a set distance from each other of around half a metre. They moved in unison, constantly looking at where they were about to place their front foot, so as not to stand on any evidence. Every now and then, one of them would find, collect and bag a discarded piece of litter and mark the spot with a flag. One officer found a small pink mitten, which they sincerely hoped belonged to a clumsy trespasser. The thought of finding another body, especially a child’s, filled everyone with dread.

Eventually, the woodland began to thin out and they arrived at a large pond covered in green algae. Ferns and willow trees dipped their branches into the water — making it look quite beautiful, in an eerie, long-forgotten kind of way.

About twenty yards to Jack’s left, an officer was prodding his search-stick into the pond, assessing the depth. As he did this, the water came to life — huge koi carp and the biggest goldfish any of them had ever seen, darted and splashed, dragging the algae below the surface and churning up dark silt from the bottom until visibility alongside the bank was non-existent. The koi headed into the centre of the pond where the water remained clear.

‘It’s much deeper in the middle,’ Anik said. ‘Five or more feet, I reckon. You can tell by the clarity of the water.’ Anik hadn’t said much since arriving, apart from moaning about how cold and muddy the woodland was. ‘Those koi shouldn’t be in a wild pond, really. It’s good they’ve got hornwort for oxygen, but it’s a bit too mucky and crowded for them in there.’

‘Quick, call the RSPCA!’ Laura said sarcastically, while Ridley instructed one of the uniformed officers to make a call for a boat, and to put divers on standby.

‘Or we could just use that boat, sir,’ Anik said, pointing to a small, weathered rowing boat beneath the branches of a low-reaching willow tree.

Five minutes later, Anik was seated in the rowing boat, holding the longest search-stick he could find and wishing he’d never noticed the rickety old death-trap. As he was rowed out to the centre of the pond by a young PC, Ridley couldn’t stop himself from smirking.

When the PC stopped rowing, Anik lowered his search-stick over the side of the boat to see how deep the pond actually was. The stick, which was taller than Anik, hit the bottom with several inches to spare.

‘Five feet was about right, then. Come back in, Anik. Good job.’

As the PC started to row back to the edge of the pond, Anik tried to pull the search-stick out, but it had caught on something. With one final yank, Anik pulled it free. He slowly raised the stick, allowing the cold, smelly pond water to run down the pole, onto his hands, down his sleeves and into his armpits. His obvious discomfort brought ironic cheers from the watchers on the bank.

On the end of the pole, just breaking the surface of the water, was a duffel bag. The laughter stopped. Anik, now oblivious to how wet he was getting, jiggled the shoulder strap further onto the stick and lifted it clear of the water. He looked back at Ridley and beamed.

Ridley moved round the edge of the pond to the spot where Anik’s rowing boat would hit the bank, pulling on nitrile gloves as he went. When they were close enough, Anik swung the search-stick round, allowing Ridley to slide the duffel bag off the end. By the time Ridley had turned back towards dry land, Laura had laid a plastic sheet on the ground. He placed the bag in the centre of the plastic and glanced at Jack with the intention of asking him to film the opening of the duffel bag — only to see that Jack, mobile in hand, was one step ahead of him. The two men nodded ‘ready’ and Ridley carefully unclipped the two front plastic clasps. One clasp shattered between Ridley’s fingers, the plastic shards dropping onto the sheeting beneath to be collected for forensics at a later time. Ridley unzipped the bag, pushed the main section open with one finger and peered inside.

It seemed to be packed like an overnight bag. Ridley reached inside and — one soaking wet item at a time — pulled out a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, a make-up bag, a toiletries bag, one pair of trainers, one bra, four pairs of knickers and four balled pairs of socks. Once the main compartment was empty, he unzipped an inside pocket and found a woman’s black leather purse. Inside this, was £100 in £20 notes, some loose change, an Oyster card and a student travel card complete with a passport-size photograph of Jessica Chi.

Ridley stood up, leaving all of the contents on the plastic sheet. ‘Laura, bag all of this and get it to forensics. Anik, Jessica’s home address is on the King’s Road. I want to know if she made her own way here on public transport, so get every inch of CCTV between here and there.’

Anik took a quick photograph of the reference numbers on Jessica’s Oyster card and student travel card, then walked away to a quieter spot, announcing that he’d start by calling Jessica’s landlady to find out what time her journey began.

‘And Laura, we still need divers, please.’

As Laura gloved-up in order to bag the contents of the duffel bag, Ridley and Jack headed back towards the house. After an unexpectedly productive hour or so in the newly discovered woodland, it was finally time to head down into the cellar.

Ridley’s initial reaction to seeing the cellar was very much the same as Jack and Mal’s had been: silent shock as he took it all in. When Ridley eventually snapped on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves and began opening boxes, Jack followed his lead. As each box was opened, each man told the other what was inside, so that they built a joint picture of what this cellar was being used for.

One box contained fifteen burner phones, giving them some indication of the number of people potentially involved. Several boxes were filled with replacement parts for computers, chemical equipment, heaters and drainage pumps: clearly, if any aspect of this drugs operation broke down, they’d have it back up and running within seconds without ever having to leave the grounds.

The next box that Jack opened, made him reel. He was now looking at four Beretta 9000 handguns, two M16 rifles and two sawn-off shotguns. Jack’s silence caught Ridley’s attention. ‘Well, we knew weapons were likely with an operation of this size.’ As Ridley spoke, Jack opened an identical box to reveal a row of eight tear gas canisters packed tightly into a black foam mould. And the depth of the box suggested a second identical row would be hiding underneath.

As they systematically opened and moved each box in turn, they slowly revealed a row of five old dented and rusty four-drawer filing cabinets against the back wall. There were no labels to indicate what each drawer might contain and all of them were locked... except one. The bottom drawer in the fifth filing cabinet was labelled AVRIL and contained all of the personal documents Jack had been searching for: diaries, photo albums, bank statements, old cheque books and a small red notebook.

‘So, if this drawer was hers...’ Jack scanned his eyes across the other nineteen locked drawers. ‘Who do they belong to?’

Ridley broke open the top drawer in the first filing cabinet and was stunned to find a monitor showing him the master bedroom. What the hell had they uncovered now? He then broke open the second drawer down, revealing another monitor. It showed the lounge.

‘I thought you checked for security cameras?’ Ridley’s question wasn’t accusatory. They both knew how small hidden cameras could be and so missing a complex set-up like this was definitely nothing for Jack to be ashamed of.

Twenty minutes later, all nineteen drawers were open and in their extended position, forming a tiered bank of monitors showing every room in the house, except the main cellar and the hidden cellar they were currently in. The rear garden was not covered, but there were two external cameras showing the front of the house. The Drug Squad van wasn’t visible on either camera, but all their collaborative manpower milling about outside the property could intermittently be seen.

Ridley breathed the words they were both thinking: ‘They’re watching us.’

Ridley and Jack sat in the hidden cellar desperately trying to work out what the hell they were going to do next. If the gang were watching, what would they have seen? The fire brigade responding to a blaze beyond the range of the cameras; police and Drug Squad swarming the property, inside and out; Avril’s body being removed. They would know their operation was completely compromised, and they’d know that evidence was now being collected in connection to the drugs, a murder and another potential one.

‘But what they won’t know,’ Jack speculated, ‘is that we’ve found this cellar. And that we know about their hidden CCTV.’

‘We have to presume that these cameras are being watched,’ Ridley said. ‘Maybe even recording. So, we have to walk back into the kitchen from the main cellar like nothing’s happened. Then we gather the main players in the Drug Squad van, which we know isn’t visible on the outside cameras... and we work out our next move.’ Ridley stood. But Jack remained seated, deep in thought.

‘She told me she was in the process of updating her home security system. Why, when this place is kitted out like Fort Knox?’

‘You’re suggesting that this is something else she didn’t know was right under her nose?’

Jack groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. ‘I don’t know.’ He moved to the drawer containing all of Avril’s personal documents.

‘You can’t take anything out, Jack. If they are watching, we can’t be seen removing anything from this cellar.’ Jack looked down into the open drawer. The elusive red notebook lay on top of an old photo of Avril, looking young and happy.

Jack agreed, bending to close the drawer. When he stood upright, his hand was in his jacket pocket.

The Drug Squad van wasn’t designed for five people. Ridley, Mal and Steve Lewis sat in the only three seats. Jack perched on the desk and Josh stood in the narrow doorway blocking out most of the natural light. All of these key players were now up to speed. Steve bristled as Ridley relayed the order in which things were now going to happen, clearly feeling he should have been part of the decision making before they then both relayed orders down the ranks. But their joint crime scene had just got more complicated than anyone could have foreseen so, for now, Ridley was determined to keep control.

‘We need to find out if there’s an external feed to this CCTV before SOCO goes in, because they could be watching our every move,’ Ridley said.

Steve disagreed. ‘If they are watching, then the case is already compromised, so speed is of the essence.’

Ridley played to Steve’s need to feel superior. ‘Having seen the technical complexity of the set-up down there, let me make a suggestion, Steve. I think we should send one tech guy down there to establish who exactly has the upper hand — us or them. And the best tech guy in the Met is yours.’ Steve softened as he once again began to feel like his team were the ones in control. ‘Let’s send Moley in. Wearing unmarked overalls. No Drug Squad logos.’

Mark Sinclair looked like a teenager. It wasn’t so much his facial features, but the fact that he was very tall and slender, like he’d just gone through a growth spurt and was waiting for adulthood to broaden him out. He seemed incapable of growing facial hair and also moved like a teenager, taking long, slow strides, and with each step his lazy heels clipped the floor. All of these features and quirks had earned him the nickname of Moley, after Adrian Mole.

Ridley and Steve sat in the Drug Squad van waiting for Moley to do his stuff while Jack and Josh paced the driveway just outside. They had been waiting for almost an hour.

Steve was about to start a conversation about rank, cross-discipline working and the fact that he wasn’t told about the cellar before his team was, when Moley appeared in the doorway.

‘There’s no external feed. I mean there can be, but it’s off. I can’t tell yet if it’s capable of recording or storing but the monitors feed most of the house, even the en suite in the master bedroom. So this is definitely the central hub. Crackin’ set-up, guv. I can’t wait to start taking it apart!’ Then he wandered away, noisily kicking gravel with his heels.

Steve jumped in before Ridley could. ‘SOCO can go in first. Then it’s ours.’

Ridley ignored Steve’s bolshy tone for the sake of a smooth working relationship at this crucial moment in the case. ‘I’m sorry not to have consulted you earlier, Steve, but there was no time. We could have been compromised. Anyway, yes, the cellar’s yours. As are the outbuildings. We can assume they’re more connected to the drugs operation than the murders. I’d like Anik to stay with Moley and act as a two-way interface to keep both sides of the investigation linked throughout. And there’s one filing cabinet drawer in the cellar containing personal items belonging to Avril Jenkins. I’m going to ask SOCO to bring those directly to me.’ Ridley stood, ready for action. ‘My team will focus on the house, the woodland and the pond area.’

‘That’s fine by me, Simon.’ Steve was now content that Ridley was showing him the respect that his rank afforded. ‘The press will want to know about the homeowner and the fire. But we must keep them in the dark about the body underneath our cannabis farm.’

‘Jessica Chi.’ Jack’s pacing deliberately took him past the doorway of the van, as he wanted to be able to overhear the conversation inside. ‘The body under the cannabis farm, sir. Her name is Jessica Chi.’

Steve didn’t care what her name was. Random victims were of no interest to him; he just wanted the dealers, the distributors and the people at the top. ‘If you don’t mind giving us a bit of privacy, DS Warr. We need to get our press stories straight. We’ll let you know when we need you again.’

Jack wasn’t angered or even offended by the way he was being spoken to. The man standing next to Steve was the DCI he answered to. ‘Certainly, sir.’ Jack’s tone was light, with a hint of sarcasm. He then addressed Ridley in a noticeably more respectful way. ‘I’ll head back to the station and wait for Avril’s personal documents, sir.’

Jack left the two DCIs, said goodbye to Josh and headed down the driveway away from the house. As he walked, he could feel the red notebook in his jacket pocket. He couldn’t wait to see what secrets it held.