“Bad day at the office?”
He rolled his eyes. “You have no idea. This case is driving me nuts. I keep thinking we’re onto something, then it turns out to be another dead end. We’ve got to catch a break soon.”
“I see the vultures are circling.” She nodded across the road to the media vans that lined the pavement.
“Oh, that’s nothing. You should have seen it yesterday. It was absolute mayhem. We’ve got the Crimewatch crew in today. They’re getting to grips with the case so they can do a re-enactment.”
“Really? Wow. Sam’s pulling out all the stops.”
Jo knew DCS Sam Lawrence, the Chief Superintendent from her work on the Surrey Stalker case, as well as the brief input she’d had into the revenge killings earlier in the year. She’d been an instant hit. Maybe it was her cheerful demeanour, or the way her intelligent blue eyes crinkled when she smiled. She was one of the most genuine people he knew.
“He’s under a lot of pressure. This is his last case. He’s retiring at the end of the year.”
“That’s a shame.” She cocked her head to the side. “He’s an institution around here.”
“The murder squad’s never been in better hands,” Rob replied.
They ordered and took a table at the back, away from the door. Every time it opened, a blast of wind blue in a customer with dishevelled hair and grit in their eyes.
Jo, practical as ever, had tied hers back in a slick blonde ponytail. She studied him from across the table. “Why don’t you give me an update? I heard the alerts and it’s been in all the papers.”
“You sure?” He didn’t want to monopolise their coffee break.
“Yes, of course. Apart from my own professional curiosity, it often helps to soundboard with someone.”
She was right. Talking about the case with her might unleash a fresh idea or line of enquiry. He could hope, anyway.
“Okay, thanks.” He fetched the coffees and returned to his seat. “Where to begin?”
“How about where she went missing? It was Barnes, right?”
“Yeah, that’s usually a pretty safe area. She was on her way to school, the friend she usually walks with had gone on ahead, so she was alone.”
Jo tutted.
“She never made it. The school rang her mother, Lisa Wells, just after nine to ask if she was sick.”
“Nightmare,” murmured Jo.
They both paused as they considered what must have been going through Lisa’s head at that point.
“Lisa called 999 pretty soon after that. By the time we got there, her soon to be ex-husband had arrived and was causing a stink with her lover, who turned up a short while later. She’d called him to help search for Katie.”
“Sounds chaotic. And they’re both in the clear?” She knew they’d have searched both their houses.
“Yep, a search turned up nothing, although Brian, Katie’s father, had planned on secreting her to France for a holiday, against the mother’s wishes.”
“Hmm…”
“Yeah, that’s what we thought, but it turns out he just missed his little girl. Lisa has full custody.”
“What about the backpack? I read it was found in the old reservoir?”
“The kidnapper must have taken Katie into the nature reserve where he or she ditched the backpack. This hasn’t been released to the public, so don’t repeat it, but we found it weighed down with stones.”
Jo gawked at him. “Did you say weighed down with stones?”
“Well, just one stone, actually. More like a small rock. Hey, are you okay? You’ve gone white.”
She reached for her coffee cup but knocked it over. Luckily, she hadn’t removed the plastic lid, and he managed to grab it before much had seeped through.
“Jo?” He touched her arm. “Was it something I said?”
A long moment passed.
“I’m sorry. I got a fright, that’s all. You just reminded me of another case, a long time ago.”
“Another case?”
“I don’t know whether to tell you this or not,” she admitted, flushing. “It sounds foolish after all this time.”
“Don’t be silly. Spill.”
She took a deep breath. “When my sister disappeared, her backpack was found in a nearby lake, weighed down with a rock.”
It took a moment to sink in. Rob knew about Jo’s sister’s disappearance, but that was twenty years ago. Her body had never been found. The mystery around what had happened had haunted Jo, it was the main reason she’d become a cop after finishing her psych degree.
“Could it be a coincidence?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” She nodded, more to convince herself than him. “It can’t possibly be related. It was too long ago.”
Twenty years.
“And it was up in Manchester.”
Whether naturally or by design, Jo had lost her Manchurian accent. Nobody who knew her now would have guessed where she was from.
“Nowhere near Barnes,” she added, but there was a tremor in her voice. The similarity to the Katie Wells case had spooked her.
Rob released her arm. “Run me through what happened to your sister, again? Just so I’m clear.”
“It’s not related, Rob. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything, it just gave me a fright, that’s all.”
His eyes bore into hers. “Humour me.”
“Okay.” She wrapped her hands around her untouched Americano with hot milk. “Rachel was out with a friend, a boy who lived in our street. I didn’t know him very well, since they were a few years older than me. Apparently, they said goodbye and the boy went home. The grocer reported seeing Rachel walk by a few minutes after that. She was alone. When she didn’t come home, my mother and my uncle went looking for her. When they couldn’t find her, they called the police.”
Another nightmare scenario for the family.
“How does the backpack come into it?” he asked.
“She had this cute leather backpack, the kind with the long, thin straps. All the teenage girls were wearing them at the time. I wanted one too, but my mum wouldn’t let me. They found it in a nearby lake, anchored down with a rock, just like Katie’s.”
Rob pursed his lips as he let this sink in.
“How old was
