“Anything?” he called out.
“Nothing,” said Mallory.
The bathroom was empty too.
There was only one place left to look. They studied the square panel in the ceiling above the landing.
“How are we going to get up there?” Rob asked.
Mallory disappeared into the second bedroom and returned carrying a pole with a hook on the end.
Rob watched as he hooked the latch and pulled the loft hatch open. It folded outwards revealing a metal ladder.
Mallory dragged it down. “Do you want to do the honours?”
Anticipation fluttered in his stomach. What would he find up there? He mentally prepared for whatever it might be. Being caught unawares was when the shock set in.
He scaled the ladder and stuck his head into the black hole. It was pitch black in the loft; he couldn’t see a damn thing. Using the torch on his phone, he peered into the darkness.
“I can’t see anything,” he called down.
He went further in. There were just more boxes, rectangular shadows with hard corners. Crates.”
“Ugh, what’s that smell?”
“Can’t smell anything from down here,” came Mallory’s reply.
The pungent odour made his skin crawl. His eyes adjusted and he made out a dim halo of light behind a stack of boxes. That must be where the window was.
He shone his torch around, looking for a light.
Aah, there it was.
He pressed a switch and a hanging bulb sprung to life. Unlike the hall light, this one was blinding. Look all you want, it was saying. You won’t find anything.
Mallory mounted the ladder behind him and shoved his head and shoulders through the hatch. “Find anything?”
“There’s not much space in here,” Rob said. “Certainly, nowhere to hide a body. Unless she’s in the boxes.”
Christ, what a thought.
“Where’s that smell coming from?”
“Over here.” Rob crouched down to inspect three or four enormous bags stacked in the corner. “Fertilizer,” he said. “Enough for a small farm.”
“Why would she keep that up here?” Mallory asked.
“No idea. She ought to get a garden shed.”
He poked around a bit more. “Can’t see any sign of Katie, can you?”
“No, thank God.”
Rob seconded that. He’d hoped to find her alive and well. Then they could have slept easy tonight. Instead, they were still on the hunt.
“Let’s get back to the station and talk to Tessa Parvin. She might be more amenable now she’s facing an obstruction charge.”
The sulky, tight-lipped woman glared at them from across the interrogation table. She was on the defensive, all right, her head held high, her body stiff, her features taut. Rob felt the animosity radiating off her.
He was the first to speak, after Mallory had presented their names for the recording. Tessa Parvin had refused her right to an attorney.
“What for? I didn’t do anything.”
Rob shrugged, he wasn’t going to argue with her. If she said anything incriminating, that was her problem. He was intrigued, however. All they wanted to do was talk to her, ask her a few questions about her own daughter, and yet here she was acting like a suspect in the Katie Wells kidnapping. Why bring that on yourself? Unless she was trying to mislead them – a double-bluff, if you like. Was he overthinking?
“Mrs Parvin, why don’t you want to help us with our investigation?” he began.
He was expecting a no comment, but she answered straight away.
“Why should I help you, when you weren’t interested when my daughter disappeared,” she hissed.
Rob stared at her, momentarily lost. “What do you mean?”
“You lot.” She waved her arm around to indicate the entire police department. “My little girl vanished four years ago, and you did nothing.”
Rob had looked up the case. Woking Police Station had handled the investigation. Twelve-year-old Arina Parvin had disappeared on her way home from school in Bisley, a small market town. The SIO, DI Purley, had come to the conclusion that Tessa’s husband, Ramin, had smuggled Arina out of the country, back to his native Iran. He’d disappeared the same time she had, and no one had had any contact with them since. The Iranians had refused to confirm or deny whether Ramin Parvin and his daughter were in the country.
Rob had left a message for DI Purley to contact him with regards to the investigation.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” he said softly.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why? So we can talk about how inept the police were? How they ignored everything I said and closed the case without ever finding out what happened to my Arina?”
“How old was your daughter when she disappeared?” asked Mallory. He knew very well how old she’d been, he’d read the file, but Rob knew he was using the question to persuade Tessa Parvin into telling them her version of events.
“She was twelve.”
Finally, they were getting somewhere.
“And where did it happen?” Mallory continued, working his advantage.
Tessa closed her eyes and gave her head a little shake.
The seconds ticked by.
Then she sighed and seemed to collapse as the fight sagged out of her. When she opened her eyes, they were muted and dull.
“Arina was walking home from school through Bisley Common. That’s the last place she was seen before she–she disappeared.”
“Did she often walk through the common?” asked Rob.
Tessa nodded. “Yes, if she didn’t catch the bus. It was a sunny day and she had two friends with her. They all lived on our side of the common.”
“What did they say happened?” Rob had read their statements and knew they’d veered off the path before Arina.
“They said goodbye to her and took a different route home. That’s the last they saw of her.”
This was the tricky bit. “What made you think something had happened to her, that she wasn’t with your husband?”
Her mouth clamped together, as she tensed.
“Ramin didn’t care about Arina. She worshipped him, but he wanted a boy. No matter what she did, she couldn’t change who she was.”
Her hands balled into grubby fists on the table. “He wouldn’t have taken her.”
It was pretty convincing. Rob studied
