John and the woman police officer traded glances.
‘Our children have gone, John – don’t you get it? Do you want me to spell it out to you? Do you want me to spell it out to you backwards with every fourth letter missing?’
Two uniformed officers came into the kitchen. One looked about nineteen years old, tall and very thin, and rather green. Slightly odd, still wearing his cap inside, Naomi thought inconsequentially. The other was older, stocky, with designer stubble and a shaved head. He held his cap in his hand and had a kind smile. ‘We’ve searched every room, all the cupboards and roof spaces. We’ll go and check on the outbuildings. Garage and greenhouse, right? And the dustbin shed? Any other outbuildings that we haven’t seen, sir?’
John, soaking wet and shivering with cold, said, ‘No.’ Then to Naomi he said, ‘Got to get you into some dry clothes. Go have a shower, I’ll deal with everything.’
‘We need to go back out,’ she said. ‘They might be down at that pond on the Gribbles’ farm – they might have fallen in.’
‘Get some proper clothes on and we’ll go out and look. We’ll find them, they’ll be somewhere around.’
The stocky officer turned to the younger one. ‘I’ll check the outbuildings. You start a log of everyone who enters the house.’
Just as Naomi left the kitchen to go up and shower, there was a rap on the door. John opened it to see a tall man of about forty, with dark, wavy hair, dressed in an unbuttoned, rain-spotted mackintosh over a grey suit, white shirt, sharp tie and shiny black lace-up shoes. His nose, squashed and kinked, looked like it had been broken more than once, giving him the thuggish look of a retired prize-fighter.
‘Dr Klaesson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Detective Inspector Pelham. I’m the duty Senior Investigating Officer.’ His tone was courteous but brisk. Extending his hand, he gave John’s a brief, firm tug, as if more would have been eating into valuable time, his sharp, grey eyes assessing John as he spoke. Then, a tad more gently, added, ‘I’m sure you and Mrs Klaesson must be feeling a little shell-shocked.’
‘I think that’s an understatement.’
‘We’re going to do everything we can to help you. But I’m afraid we’re going to have to seal this house up inside and out, as a crime scene, and I’d like you and your wife to pack a bag with your essentials and enough clothes to last for a few days, and move out.’
John stared at him in shock. ‘What?’
‘No one’s been in the house,’ Naomi said.
‘I’m sorry, it’s standard procedure for a major crime scene.’
Two men suddenly came in from the garden without knocking. They were wearing white suits with hoods up, white overshoes and rubber gloves, and each carried a holdall.
‘Morning, Dave,’ one said nonchalantly.
‘Morning, Chief!’ said the other breezily, as if they were just a pair of interior decorators turning up to paint a hallway.
The young uniformed police officer took their names and noted them down in his log.
‘Where – where do we move out to?’ John asked the DI.
‘Do you have any relatives you could stay with nearby? Otherwise a hotel or a boarding house.’
‘Relatives, yes, but not close. Look, we don’t want to leave here, not without our children.’
Detective Inspector Pelham nodded in understanding, but not sympathy. ‘I’m afraid you are both going to be required to come to the station and make statements. Someone will drive you. We’re already looking for your children, and the helicopter will be overhead in a few minutes. I suggest you get dressed, and you and I and Mrs Klaesson have a cup of tea here in the kitchen and run through a number of things I need to ask you.’
‘I want to go out and look for them.’
‘I have officers out there looking in the immediate vicinity already. Your children are three years old?’
‘Yes, but-’ John checked himself.
The detective inspector raised his eyebrows, quizzically. As if in response John added, ‘They are quite grown-up for their age.’
‘All children are these days, Dr Klaesson.’ The policeman’s inscrutable expression eased fleetingly into a thin, wintry smile. ‘Have they ever done this before?’
‘Wandered off? No,’ Naomi sobbed.
‘We can’t make any assumptions at the moment,’ DI Pelham said. ‘But I think at three years old, we should work on the likelihood that they are not far away – although in view of what’s happened we’ve put out an alert to all airports, seaports and the Channel Tunnel as a precaution. It would be helpful if you could let me have a recent photograph of them. But don’t worry, we’ll find them.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘You’ve never seen this man – outside your front door – before? You have no idea who he might be?’
The Detective Inspector noticed the strange glance John and Naomi Klaesson gave each other.
100
Even after a hot shower and dressed in warm clothes, back in the kitchen Naomi could not stop shaking. It took all her concentration to fill the electric kettle and push the plug in. Moments later, as it began to hiss and rumble, she heard a much louder roar, like thunder, outside.
She stared out of the window and saw a helicopter clatter by overhead, barely higher than the trees. John came down in jeans, a roll-neck sweater and his fleece jacket, clutching two holdalls into which they had hurriedly packed washing kit and changes of clothing. Moments later, Detective Inspector Pelham came in from the garden.
‘I do not want to leave, Detective Inspector,’ she said. ‘I want to stay here, this is my home. I want to stay until my children come back.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Klaesson, we’ll be as quick as we can.’
‘How quick?’
‘A couple of days, I would hope.’ Then he said, ‘I see you have a security camera, hidden up beneath the guttering. Does it record?’
‘Jesus!’ John said, slapping his forehead. ‘Of course! It was only installed on Wednesday!’ He looked at Naomi and her eyes brightened a fraction.
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Why the hell didn’t we think of it?’
John led the way along the hall to his den, and opened the cupboard where the recorder was concealed. ‘I – I haven’t tried – let me check.’
Shakily, he thumbed through the instruction manual.
‘Don’t wipe the tape, darling,’ Naomi said. ‘For God’s sake, don’t wipe it.’
He pressed the stop button on the machine. Then the rewind. ‘It’s activated by movement,’ he said. ‘And it has night vision.’
The digital display counted back to 00.29, then jumped back further to 19.10.
He pressed play.
All three of them stared at the black-and-white image on the small monitor beside the machine. It showed a glare of headlights. Then, moments later in fish-eye wide angle, John’s Saab pulling up next to Naomi’s Subaru. John got out and walked up to the porch and out of sight.
Then.
A flash, indicating a time jump.
John held his breath.
Sweet Jesus.
Total stunned silence in the room.
A figure clambering over the fence from the field. Wearing a dark cap, an anorak, wellington boots, gloves. He put one cautious foot forward on the gravel, as if he were testing water. Then another.
‘It’s him,’ Naomi said, in a strangled, tremolo voice.
