Chapter 4

Sunday night

Jon Graham turned away from the live feed of the beachfront. His heart heavy, he fiddled with his cup. When he followed his sergeant's written instructions as to where all the cameras were, he had seen the blue flyers. What he had heard this morning had been no celebration on the beach. They had been searching for a missing girl.

His super would have to know right away, though he wondered if perhaps he should hold off. The girl might turn up. Offering help with this missing girl situation would jeopardize his undercover work. To make matters worse, the officer in charge of finding the girl was the officer he was investigating.

He pulled his bowl of rice from the micro and cleared the table of Detective Sergeant Thomas Browne's old mags, remotes, empty cellotape dispensers, and stacks of blank notepads. The monitor hooked up to the lone DVD player was the closest to him. A lot of the newer cameras recorded directly to the computer. All the VHS tapes would have to wait until he could locate a VCR. Who uses such outdated equipment anymore?

The video would recycle itself unless he took the pertinent footage and archived it. He'd gone through and archived footage taken at the time the girl disappeared to flash drives. The only thing he could do nothing about was the VHS tapes. There were two of them. He wondered what was on them. He was that knackered. Everything blurred in his mind.

He cleared his disposable dish out of the way. The flatware he tossed in the sink amongst other unwashed dishes. His predecessor was not much in the cleaning department and he'd been here two weeks. He grabbed a bin bag and cleared away rubbish to make needed surface space.

He wanted to replay the footage he'd seen of the two girls on the beach. One of the cameras caught the girls as they rounded a rock outcropping. Both girls had been in brighter light, but when one girl disappeared back around the rock, there was too much shadow. He couldn't see.

Now more awake, he pressed "pause" and switched his attention to another computer screen. The other camera set face the steps the girls had taken may have caught something more. He set it to play back at the same time, then he clicked "back" on both of them and watched the camera's clock. He pressed "play" just as the girls stepped away from shadows into the light. The video from the other side of the beach made the girls look minuscule. The missing girl had gone back toward the steps as if she'd seen something.

The VHS tape recorders were closest to the stairs. It was dark there, but the really important things might be on them. Blast it! As he pounded a fist on the table, an errant paper cup tipped over. A muck of old coffee spread out and he had to grab his police notebook up. He stopped the play by play and stared at the images frozen on the monitor. He soaked up the mess and pulled out another notepad for unofficial scribbles.

Conclusions? The girl had seen someone off-camera, against the rock wall, apparently hiding in a natural crevice where he wouldn't be noticed. This means there was a possibility that the person had not planned the attack, that whoever had been there had arrived before dawn. The cliffs faced west. Before the sun was higher in the sky everything on the beach was dark. It wouldn't have been difficult to remain hidden. So why had the man spoken? Unless he wanted to get the girl's attention and so, kidnap her? An involuntary shudder took him.

Jon turned to the other monitors, which had footage from the live CCTV cameras set up on the roads to and from the farm where Detective Chief Inspector Trewe lived with his son's family. By special dispensation and in conjunction with the UK Highways Agency, Jon's sergeant had been able to set up a wireless link to the traffic observing stations. In the same vein, Jon had been able to recommend that a few fixed cameras be strategically placed in the Active Traffic Management system around Perrin's Point. Why hadn't the local police department requested more cameras before? Answer: Money-always the issue, and damn the results. Jon had used the argument that Cornwall wasn't as inundated with traffic cameras as were other areas and that traffic accidents did occur here.

He wanted to check to see if the dark car that hit him was recorded. The road footage showed a lot of nothing but dark strips of pavement augmented on one side by stacked rock walls and on the other side by hedgerows. Except for the seasonal influx of sun-and-surf revelers, what was there to see? Hedgehogs, sure. Rare wild ponies would be a definite highlight. And grab your hats and hold your seats if a walker with dog happened by.

He backtracked to the time of the girl's disappearance, then decided if the fellow who hit him had driven out of Perrin's Point, he had likely driven into Perrin's Point, so he backtracked even further until he did catch the dark car enter the road to the beach. The footage was too dark to read the registration tags. He fast-forwarded through darkness, and there it was, the car leaving. Not much to go on. The driver gripped the wheel; there were no identifying marks on his knuckles and his face was hidden beneath a hat. Then he saw the time. The exact time the girl had been reported missing. Coincidence? He thought not.

He should get the VHS tapes to the missing girl's investigation team. If he took the VHS tapes to the local police, the entire force would be at him about his role in it. He'd have to return to London a failure. On the other hand, if he didn't report the footage this moment, he would be accused of withholding evidence, surely a reason for dismissal.

His boss, Detective Superintendent Bakewell, had experts that could help out with shadows and lightening and enhancing even VHS footage. But time was of the essence with a missing girl. "A simple reporting of the facts," he murmured, as he slipped the DVD he'd just created into a sleeve and labeled it "Beach Footage."

What would Bakewell say when he heard Jon's story? He would say, "If you report the tapes, we'll have no choice but to stitch up this business with Trewe, and that would put him in a position to withhold information, which would then afford him opportunity to hide the money."

Jon would make the argument about the missing girl and time, etc. etc.

Bakewell would tell him to send the flash drive footage by email, copy the flash drives and keep them to hand over to DCI Trewe when the time was right, and send the VCR tapes by post first thing in the morning.

Of course. That is exactly what he would say.

He sent a preliminary email to explain the situation and hoped it sounded lucid, given his lack of sleep. He then packed the two VCR tapes in a big envelope and the flash drives in a separate, smaller envelope. Done and done.

He cracked a window and closed the door.

A full twenty-two hours had passed since he'd last slept. The best sleep-inducer would be to read the reports his ailing sergeant had left behind. He picked up the reports, lay on the sofa, and within an hour sat up again. The most remarkable thing about all the information in the reports was that there was nothing remarkable. What had the man been doing? This lack of progress meant that he would have to go to the hospital and interview his sergeant. It was past visiting hours, so he couldn't do that until the next day. His stay in Cornwall just grew one day longer. Ha!

He fell asleep with an open book of Shakespeare on his chest. Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

***

Ruth pressed the toothbrush harder against the tub grout. The toothbrush was a frazzled mess. She was told to stay put and wait for a call, but she couldn't just sit. So she cleaned. She stared up at the mirror above the sink.

The day before, Annie had called, "Mom! Come see!"

Ruth had gone into the bathroom. Her funny, creative daughter was sitting on the sink, her feet in the bowl, drawing faces in a smear of shave gel. "Annie! I said clean the mirror."

"But Mom, this is you. Look," she drew her finger through the gel, "a smile!"

"Oh? And why am I smiling?"

"Because I made two goals in the practice game today, and straight away Mr. Sawyer told me I was brilliant. Real praise-coming from him, that is."

"Great! I'm so proud of you."

"Yeah, and Caroline was furious about it, jealous prat."

"Annie!"

"She was."

Annie had tackled her school papers the night before so she wouldn't have them to do the last day of her weekend.

The mirrors were fogged now with hot water steam. She felt inclined to clean the mirrors until she noticed the tiny smears left from the gel. No. She wouldn't touch them.

Ruth got up from beside the tub and took her gloves off. She'd been at it since coming home from the police station that morning. She took up the bottle of cleaner and squirted it on the sink. The sink was already desperately clean.

"Dear Lord Jesus."

It sounded odd. She hadn't really prayed in such a long time.

She wandered out to the living room. She couldn't vacuum; the phone might ring and she wouldn't hear it. Beyond the picture window, the front yard was dark. It was night? When did that happen? The clock on the wall ticked. Was Annie hungry? Cold? What was he doing to her?

Earlier that day, Sally had held Ruth's hand, answered the phone, fixed meals Ruth couldn't eat, then left to care for her own family, promising to come back and spend the night.

Ruth lay on the couch and hugged her knees to her chest. The flowers in the vase looked orderly, but they smelled bad. They reeked. She stood and yanked the flowers from the sour water, stumbled into the kitchen, rammed them into the bin, bent over, and retched.

She made her way back to the living room. He meant to kill us. No one would believe me. Now she had to tell. Everyone here would find out what a liar she was. But it didn't matter. He still meant to hurt Annie.

"Please Lord, not my Annie." She looked at the mug of tea she hadn't touched since this morning. The room closed in. She couldn't breathe properly. She paced-back and forth, back and forth. She hit the wall with an open hand each time she came to it. Pace, slap. Pace, slap.

She looked at the clock again. It was eleven forty-five. Why hadn't she heard anything? With a cry she fell across the couch. No, no, no! Annie! She rubbed at her face until it hurt.

She needed to wait. Something would happen. She reached for the box of tissues from a side table, turned off the lamp and sat in the dark. She picked at her nails as she stared out the window.

Riverside was the name of her cottage. It lay nestled in a quiet neighborhood with the River Perrin, which was more like a stream, running along behind. She was four blocks from the sea with several rows of cottages or businesses between, but sometimes she could swear she heard the song of the waves, as she did now. She went to the window and cracked it. No. It was, of course, only the river she heard, and yet-the rhythm, the ghostly echo of drums-and she was back on the beach surrounded by people. They were calling for Annie.

Across the village, in the harbor, searchers' lights flashed like fallen stars, pieces of hope that spread farther and farther out of her reach.

She paced some more, then crumpled to the couch again. Mandy, the cat, jumped up and settled herself on the back of the couch behind Ruth's head. Somewhere, Ruth had a picture of baby Annie sleeping on Mandy. She remembered taking it-in the picture Annie's baby drool dripped onto the ferocious-hater-of-water-turned-pillow. Despite being ten and too "cool" to be sentimental, Annie loved her Mandy-cat. Ruth leaned back against the cat and let her purr drown out the ticking of the clock.

A melodic ring woke her. She sprang from her seat and a billion pieces of shredded Kleenex scattered. The tinny notes of "Annie Get Your Gun" grew louder. Her cell phone! They call them mobiles here, mum, remember? She snatched up her purse and dug into it.

How hard could it be to find a phone? She flipped the purse upside down. Everything fell out. The cell phone clattered. She grabbed it up and unlocked the screen. The incoming number!

She screamed, "Annie where are you?"

"Hello, Mother." It was not her child's voice.

Her legs gave out from under her. "Where's Annie? Where's Annie?"

"Tell me you love me."

It didn't sound like the voice that she remembered, but it had been years since they'd spoken. "What are you saying?"

The connection was cut.