The Last Witness

‘What about Mr Waldren?’

Turton had already told Ryall about them putting Mr Waldren on a tight time leash the first twelve hours with the promise of them possibly holding back on charges till then — so Crowley jumped to what had happened since. They’d piled on the pressure by extending the deadline by a few hours, but that now too was well past. They’d applied for a telephone tap on the Waldren’s line along with a record of all calls made the past thirty-six hours, and received both in late yesterday.

‘…But nothing interesting from the records or from the monitoring so far. Though that might be because Mr Waldren seems to make the habit of travelling out to call boxes, usually late at night. Which is the other thing we’re doing — following his movements. Two Chelborne boxes and one on the way to Wareham: he uses different boxes each time. And every time he appears to be receiving the calls rather than making them.’ The way it came across, Crowley couldn’t help thinking their efforts sounded quite impressive. ‘As you can see, sir, we’re not sitting on our haunches on this. We’re covering every possible option.’

‘Is that right?’ Ryall quickly killed any exuberance. ‘But the end result of all this marvellous activity is that you’re found absolutely nothing concrete?’

‘Yes, well, I… I’m not sure what else you expect us to be doing on this?’

‘I though that was your job to work out.’ Mix of bristling impatience and sarcasm. ‘But if I think of anything, I’ll make sure to phone you.’ Ryall hung up abruptly.

Child molester or not — Crowley didn’t want to go near the dangerous area of even attempting to think about it — Cameron Ryall was certainly not a nice person.

Ryall’s intimation that he might not be doing his job properly had particularly stung him, he felt the strong urge to redress the balance, score back some points. And when forty minutes later the two DCs trailing Gordon Waldren patched in to say that he was on the move ‘…Heading out of the area this time, obviously not seeing local clients’ — he thought he might just have that something. Though he waited for another hour to receive the news that Waldren was on the A421 approaching Northampton before he called Ryall.

‘…It could be that he’s going to meet up with his wife, or at least where he’s headed could give some clue to her whereabouts. Certainly it’s a change to his normal routine.’

‘Yes… I see. Some activity I suppose rather than nothing. Thank you for phoning. Keep me posted.’

Crowley’s next call wasn’t for over two hours. ‘He’s gone to Durham, it appears. My men have just watched him park.’

‘Which street?’ Ryall asked pointedly.

‘What…?’ Crowley was fazed for a second before going back to the other line to ask. ‘Elvet Hill Road.’

‘That’s where my other daughter is, you oaf.’

‘Your other daughter?’

‘Yes, my eldest stepdaughter, Mikaya. She’s at Durham University.’

‘…And what would Gordon Waldren be doing seeing her?’

‘I don’t know, for God’s sake,’ Ryall blustered. ‘Maybe abducting her as well. A full bloody house!’ Though he did know. An icy tingle ran up his spine, made his whole body rigid. His secretary had looked up with his raised voice, was still looking concernedly through his glass office partition. He looked down, lowered his voice to an urgent rasp. ‘Look — you’ve got to stop him seeing her.’

‘I… I don’t know if we can do that. It’s not our job to deal with preventive crime management just because you think something might happen.’ Now it was Crowley’s turn to be condescending. ‘Besides, Waldren’s not even meant to know we’re tailing him. And he’s not exactly going to get far with anyone with my two men sitting right over his car.’

‘But you’ve got to do something. I don’t want him speaking to her — is that clear?’

No it wasn’t, not really; but with one daughter now missing for over forty hours, Crowley conceded that Ryall’s reasoning powers were probably heavily bruised. ‘As I say, I don’t think there’s much we can do. But you could of course phone her yourself — warn her off from meeting him. If that’s what he’s got in mind.’

‘Thanks. You’ve been a big help.’

For the second time Crowley found himself left holding a dead line with Ryall.

Ryall tried Mikaya first in her dorm room: no answer. Then he tried to raise her through her tutor or whatever lectures she might be in at that moment, but still no luck. All he was left with was the Registrar secretary’s consolation: ‘We’ve got messages out for her with the note that it’s urgent. I’m sure she’ll call you back as soon as she’s able.’

‘Yes… Thank you. I’m sure she will.’

By then it would probably be too late. Waldren could already be with her in a study room or quiet corner, questioning her. Ryall started trembling, a tingling heat rising up through his neck to his face. His secretary looked away as he looked up sharply.

Turton’s revelation that the main reason given for Lorena’s abduction was for her to undergo psychiatric counselling, and now Gordon Waldren confronting Mikaya: it was like a one-family all-out assault! He doubted that conventional child-psychiatry would uncover much — but with repeated sessions the odds could rapidly worsen. Who knew for sure? Each extra hour with no news on Lorena tightened the tourniquet on his nerves, made him want to scream out loud: part anxiety and fear, part exasperation at the lack of control — so alien to him.

Mikaya too probably wouldn’t recall anything — but what worried him most with her was the time that had since elapsed. How long did something like that stay buried at the back of the mind before it could finally be recovered?

TWENTY-TWO

Elena observed her hand shaking as she put her cup of herbal tea back in its saucer. The shaking was less now, but still evident.

Another three squad cars she’d passed that afternoon with her nerves on a knife-edge until they’d finally gone from view. She should have known that trawling door to door across half of Montreal, the chances of crossing the path of the police would be greatly increased — but the rationalisation did little to ease the tight-rope pressure. She didn’t know how much more she could take of this.

She’d dived into a local chemists after squad car number two — which slowed for a second while the passenger officer gave her the once-over as she gave her by now standard door-step pitch to Stevens family sixteen or seventeen, she’d lost count — and grabbed a bottle of natural nerve-calming tablets. Their main ingredient was something called Valerian, and the label advised to take two tablets at four hour intervals. She swilled down four straight away with an orange juice from a deppaneur.

Then she started to recall the advice given by Gordon’s doctor for him to combat stress and high blood- pressure and head off another heart attack. Avoid fatty foods, dairy produce and high sugar intake; avoid stimulants such as coffee and coke; brandy and vodka were a definite no-no, but beer was okay in moderation and whisky was actually good for him ‘…Has a calming effect and also thins the blood, actually improves the circulation.’ But again in moderation.

She’d miss the kick-start of her normal five or six cups of fresh caffeine a day, and already the craving for it was excruciating with the energy badly needed, but sadly lacking, to plod around yet another six or seven doors that evening before finally calling it a day. The herbal tea was a poor substitute.

She’d picked up three whisky miniatures at the same depanneur and had downed the first just before the next door call; but she’d held herself in check since, hadn’t taken any more. She hadn’t slept well the night before, and with her eyes slightly bloodshot and her nerves frayed, she was starting to look increasingly like a woman on the edge: she couldn’t help noticing that the doors were being opened more cautiously, tentatively, some people talking through only foot gaps. If she started enveloping them in whisky fumes, she’d be given even less of a welcome.