Cold Justice (5 page)

‘Maybe . . . something in that press conference definitely wasn’t right. Something’s not being said between them. I want his phone checked and I want their flat bugged if Samuel isn’t found tonight.’

‘We could move them out to a hotel – tell them it’s to give them some privacy. Hotel rooms are easier to bug,’ suggested Willis.

‘No, I’d rather leave them where they are. How did the searches on sex offenders’ homes work out?’ Carter asked. ‘Anything promising?’

Willis stood, her chair grating as it pushed backwards on the wooden floor. She picked up the half-eaten doughnut she’d bought from the canteen much earlier that morning.

‘Nothing so far – three down, two to go.’

‘Don’t get that on my coat,’ Carter said as Willis came too close to him with the doughnut. Jeanie walked in just as they were about to leave. Willis smirked.

‘How are the Forbes-Wrights after the press conference?’ Carter asked as Jeanie sat down at her desk.

‘My hunch? There will be a few angry words being exchanged, I think. This is when the major cracks in their relationship start to appear.’

‘What’s the deal with them?’ asked Carter. ‘She’s much older.’

‘She seems to have put her career first,’ replied Jeanie. ‘She left it late to find a partner and then they met and married within six months. He’s difficult to fathom. I can see what he’d find to like in her – if he’s into older women, that is, but I’m sure she could have bagged a fifty-year-old divorcee to give her a child and some security. He must have hidden depths – he’s not my type. He seems so young, even younger than his twenty-nine years.’

‘He’s sensitive, arty,’ said Willis. ‘Lauren obviously likes mothering him. If it works, it works, I suppose.’

‘Until it stops working,’ Carter said. ‘Until he wakes up and decides it’s not what he wants and he’s not enough of a grown-up to say “I want out”.’

Jeanie looked deep in thought as Willis said, ‘We’re sending officers round to interview the staff at the Observatory this morning. We should know more about him then.’ Willis shoved the last of the doughnut into her mouth, screwed up the bag and lobbed it at the bin. ‘We have a call logged on Toby’s phone at two sixteen yesterday. That was from one of his co-workers, Gareth Turnbill. He phoned him before his walk with Samuel,’ Willis continued, looking at her notes. ‘He lives in Blackheath. He’s a lad of nineteen. We’ll talk to him first.’

‘What have the couple said to you about Jeremy Forbes-Wright?’ Carter asked Jeanie.

‘Very little. Lauren never met him. He didn’t attend their wedding. Toby said he hadn’t seen him in ages.’

‘Where was the funeral?’ Carter asked Willis.

‘Ladywell and Brockley Cemetery.’ Carter looked at it over her shoulder as she brought up a link on screen: Friends of Ladywell and Brockley Cemetery homepage.

‘I know it,’ he said. ‘I have a relative on my dad’s side buried there. It’s a beautiful old cemetery. What did they say went on after the funeral, Jeanie?’

‘They came back to the flat, they had a discussion about who was there, well, more just agreeing that they didn’t know anyone, and then they talked briefly about his father’s affairs. I think there was some tension over Toby having gone to look at his father’s flat without Lauren. They were considering leaving this morning to go to Cornwall. Jeremy Forbes-Wright had a house there but it’s let most of the time. That was one thing Lauren did say – that the man who was responsible for letting that house was at the funeral.’

‘We had to send a few officers to the cemetery to keep the press at arm’s length,’ said Willis. ‘But it’s useful for us to see who actually went inside. There were several news companies filming. Some say Jeremy Forbes-Wright had a chance of being Prime Minister one day,’ Willis added as she watched some footage of the funeral on her screen.

‘He was expected to run for one of the vacant seats in Kent, prime Tory country, but he was reported as having dropped out of the race at Christmas,’ said Jeanie. ‘There’s been speculation about it but no real reason given.’

Carter was watching the screen with Willis. He turned back to Jeanie. ‘What about Lauren, what’s in her past?’

‘She’s super-bright . . . very academic. Only child. Parents are professors. She has a great job; earns about eighty grand at the moment but she’s still working her way up the ladder.’

‘I think we’re right to count her out. That leaves Toby and his dad, which doesn’t seem a hell of a lot of good. The public will want to know how a kid can be snatched from his father’s buggy in broad daylight and then disappear.’

Jeanie nodded. ‘Okay, give me an hour to write up my notes and I’ll head back over to see them.’

‘We’ll join you there at their flat. We need to put some pressure on Toby now to start remembering things.’

Willis stood in front of the French windows, looking out at the Thames. Pots of herbs battled against the odds on the small balcony. One was upturned, rolling around in its own dirt. There was a small dog turd getting turned over in the wind. Today the Thames was the colour of slate. She could see the river police – she knew they were still looking for Samuel’s body. It was twelve noon but already the day was getting dark. Storms were on the way.

She and Carter were alone in the lounge – a large through space with white walls and pictures of Manhattan. Jeanie was talking to the couple in the kitchen. Carter took the opportunity to look at the photos on the walls, the knick-knacks on the shelves. There weren’t many in the minimalist rented apartment. There was a desk in the corner, which had a laptop on it. Carter could guess which pieces of furniture each half of the couple had conceded to the other. The desk had to be Lauren’s: neat, bundles of papers. A lot of things carefully managed. Compartmentalized. A white-framed portrait of the three of them was on the wall above her desk. The sofa looked like it had come out of Toby’s bedsit. It was ropy and had been covered loosely with a green and white Lauren-type throw. One wall was given over to gadgets and systems: 3D TV, docking stations, CDs and films, mainly sci-fi, in alphabetical order. This was Toby’s wall. In the corner of the room was a white box full of Samuel’s toys. Carter sympathized; Lauren was working very hard to keep their identity in the baby takeover bid. It was a tricky balancing act for any couple.

From the kitchen behind them they could hear Jeanie running through the events of the day before once again with Lauren. The door to the kitchen opened and Toby came into the lounge. He sat on the sofa and held his head in his hands.

First Jeanie, then Lauren followed him in. Lauren remained standing.

Willis was still standing at the French windows but had turned, her back to the Thames. She could hear the dog whimpering in the kitchen. She looked at the couple. The one thing that working in MIT 17 had taught her in the last two years was that when something like this happened most marriages fell apart. It would take a miracle to save theirs now. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and read the message then replied and replaced it in her jacket. Carter whispered: ‘Any news?’

She shook her head. ‘Negative on the ports and trains.’

‘Toby,’ Jeanie continued calmly in her professional, caring, no-blame voice, ‘when was the last time you looked into the buggy and checked on Samuel? The last time you actually saw him?’

Lauren walked forward so slowly, hardly making a sound. She stood at the end of the sofa staring at her husband, side-on.

Carter knew what she’d be thinking, what they were all thinking.
Yes, for Christ’s sake – when was the last bloody time you even checked on your son to see that he was alive?

‘I think it was when we went into the café at the Royal Observatory. I thought he might want a biscuit. I wiped his nose.’

‘Did he?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Want a biscuit?’

‘No. I don’t think so. I gave him a drink.’ Toby glanced at his wife as he spoke. Every word that came out of his mouth was filled with agonizing self-recrimination. Carter could see that he longed for her to say something to make him feel better; he expected it; but it wasn’t coming this time.

Lauren stared at Toby’s profile, her eyes full of the pain of a moment lost to her.

‘Do you remember anyone who was there at the time?’ Jeanie continued. ‘Someone who might have seen you?’

He was trying hard to recall. ‘There were the usual café staff.’

‘Did you speak to them?’

‘Just hello, how’s things?’

‘Was there anyone else there?’

‘It was getting busy as I left. There was a man reading a book near the entrance. There were a couple of people as well – I didn’t get a look at them. There were people arriving as I went out. Someone held the door open for me.’

‘Can you remember what they looked like?’

‘No. I was concentrating – it’s not always easy to get the buggy out of places. I was trying not to catch the wheel on the door frame.’

‘Where did you go then?’

‘I went to see if my new exhibition pieces were working okay then I went into the shop as well – it’s in the same building.’

‘You are an expert on black holes, aren’t you?’ said Willis from her place by the French windows.

‘Yes.’ Toby turned and smiled at her. ‘It’s my passion.’ She thought it was the first time she’d seen anything but panic on his face. That was his world, not pushing babies around in buggies.

‘Where did you go then?’ Carter asked as Toby turned to look at his wife. She stared coldly back.

‘I just kept on walking.’

‘Where?’

‘I walked home,’ he said, exasperated. He was squirming on the sofa, obviously feeling persecuted.

‘How long would it normally take you to walk to work from your house?’ asked Carter.

‘Twenty-five minutes.’

Willis was going through the statements in her notebook.

‘Gareth said it was ten past four when you left,’ she read out.

‘So tell me what you do remember about leaving the Observatory,’ Carter asked.

‘I just pushed Samuel towards home.’

‘Which took you over an hour to do. We’ve been walking that a few times in this last twenty-four hours. I would say – even on a leisurely walk – we managed to make it from the Royal Observatory to your home in less than thirty minutes.’ Toby shrugged and shook his head. Carter continued: ‘So you left the Observatory and you started back towards home. Was it dark?’

‘Yes.’

‘Must have been cold?’

‘Yes, the temperature had dropped considerably.’

‘Maybe you checked that Samuel had his hat and gloves on, did you? My kid Archie is around Samuel’s age. He won’t keep things on for two minutes.’

Toby gave a small, hopeless shake of the head: ‘I presumed he was still asleep. I never thought about it . . .’ His voice trailed off as he looked up and around the room at the waiting faces – only Jeanie smiled encouragement. ‘It had been a long day. My mind was elsewhere. I should have checked him.’

‘Did you see anyone you knew after you left the Observatory and said goodbye to Gareth?’ Carter asked.

‘No.’

‘After you left there where did you go exactly?’

‘I walked along the top, looked at the view of London, I did a roundabout route back down.

‘Again, did you talk to anyone, Toby?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘No casual word? No interaction of any kind?’

Toby shook his head.

‘After you left the park, where did you go?’ asked Carter.

‘I decided I’d head home via the music shop near the market.’ Toby said it so casually it was as if he were testing it out to see how it sounded. He shook his head. ‘I thought I’d have time to browse while he was quiet.’ Lauren turned her head from him. ‘I wanted to look in the window – there was a saxophone I’d been keeping an eye on – just wanted to see if it was still there. I used to play, years ago.’

‘Did you go inside the shop? Maybe you left Samuel outside?’

Toby hesitated. ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, and then shook his head vigorously.

‘You didn’t park the buggy somewhere for a few minutes so that you could browse?’

Toby shook his head in denial but his expression said the opposite. Somewhere in his memory banks he remembered having left the buggy just for a few seconds, a minute at the most. Maybe it was more than once, Carter thought to himself.

‘Think carefully,’ he said to Toby. ‘Did you feel his weight shift, hear him move? Maybe he chatters, does he?’

Lauren fought back the tears. Jeanie reached out to place a hand on her arm.

Carter called Willis to follow him out into the hallway where the buggy was. He held it by the handles and bounced it gently.

‘I admit, this is a heavy buggy. With Archie’s you’d know if he wasn’t in it but it’s possible you could push this along with a lighter kid and have no idea. What d’you think?’

Willis repeated the action and nodded. ‘And, he’s not used to pushing it – he’s not thinking like everyone else.’

‘Let’s go outside.’

They walked towards the river and the Thames path. Carter pulled up the collar of his coat. It wasn’t enough. The icy wind cut between the apartment blocks. He pulled his yellow cashmere scarf up around his mouth, tried to make it reach up to his ears but it wasn’t happening.

‘He’s saying what we want to hear now – or what his wife wants to hear. He’s too scared to admit he left the buggy – certainly not in front of his wife. We need to split them up,’ Carter said as he slipped into a doorway to shelter from the blasting wind. He unwrapped a piece of gum. ‘So, what else is Toby lying about?’ Carter stamped his expensive shoes against the cold. Willis didn’t seem to feel it. ‘We’ll double the searches up around the Observatory. What would he have done with his own kid on a cold afternoon in January? It was dark when he came back, he could have walked along the path and jumped down onto the river bank, weighted the child down and thrown him into the river.’

‘Shall we order the divers in?’

‘No, if Samuel is down there he’s not going anywhere. I’d rather concentrate everything on finding him alive. Has Pam had any luck looking into the grandfather? What about his connection to Cornwall?’