For a second Alice didn’t react. Then she shook her head.
‘We’re going to be running that clip on the news tonight,’ said Rushton. He looked at his watch. ‘In just over an hour. Asking them to come forward. If it was nothing to do with Joe, we can rule them out.’
‘Is that a man with him?’ asked Harry. ‘Woman? Teenager?’
‘Anybody’s guess,’ said Rushton. ‘We’ve got people trying to enhance the image, but when all you’re working with is the back of someone’s head it’s tricky. Of course, these two might have nothing to do with Joe. We’ve got officers talking to all the bus drivers who were working that patch this afternoon. Taxi drivers too, in case the lad managed to sneak some money out. Needless to say, his picture’s been sent to all stations in the area, along with a description.’
Harry put his phone on the table in front of him. ‘What about cameras around the town?’ he said. ‘Don’t we all get caught on camera about a hundred times a day? If that’s true, some of the ones around Blackburn must have picked Joe up.’
‘We’ve got a team going through them all,’ said Rushton. ‘It’ll take a while, as I’m sure you can imagine, but you’re right, some of them will have spotted him.’
‘Can we help?’ said Harry. ‘If it’s a question of manpower. We can sit and look at TV screens.’
‘It’s a good thought,’ said Rushton, ‘but these things need to be done by people not emotionally involved. Your place is here, with the family. Right, where was I?’ He glanced down at his notes. ‘We’ve got officers working their way through Blackburn town centre, asking in all the shops that are still open. They’re all carrying his photo.’
‘Joe wouldn’t just go off with a stranger though,’ said Gareth. ‘If he left King George’s with someone, it would have to be someone he knew.’
‘Quite possibly,’ said Rushton. ‘On the other hand, he is a very young lad. And people can be very convincing. We’ve also been talking to all his classmates. If Joe had any plans, he might have mentioned them to someone. Right, I need to get back to the station now. When the news bulletin goes out, the phones will go bananas.’ He reached out and patted Alice’s shoulder. ‘Keep your spirits up, lass,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Someone will have spotted him.’
‘Hold on a second,’ said Harry, pushing back his own chair. ‘What you’re doing in Blackburn looks very thorough, but what about here?’
Rushton was frowning at him. ‘Here?’ he said.
‘Who’s looking here? I’ve seen no sign of a search going on outside. And we still haven’t found this girl Tom’s been talking about.’
‘Blackburn’s twelve miles away, Harry,’ said Rushton. ‘I doubt he ran away from the theatre only to make his way back home on his own.’
‘And you think Joe’s disappearance is just coincidence?’ said Harry. ‘That it’s not connected to what’s going on up here?’
Rushton seemed about to speak and then changed his mind. ‘Word outside, Reverend,’ he muttered, indicating the door to the hall. Harry stood and followed Rushton out of the room. They crossed the hall towards the front door, with Gareth close behind. Rushton opened his mouth to object.
‘Last time I checked, he was my son,’ said Gareth, folding his arms across his chest.
‘Three dead children were found in the garden of this house,’ said Harry. ‘And now another one is missing. This cannot be a normal abduct-’
‘Those children were girls, quite a bit younger than Joe,’ shot back Rushton. He glared at Harry for a second, then seemed to relax. ‘I’ll bring a team up in the morning,’ he said. ‘We’ll get the dogs out, I’ll see if the chopper’s available, we can look for this little girl of Tom’s. But tonight, I have to concentrate my resources on where the chances of finding the lad are greatest. He’s somewhere in Blackburn, I’m sure of it.’
70
‘FEELING BETTER?’
Evi wiped her nose and drew the handkerchief under her make-up wouldn’t smudge too badly. ‘Yes,’ she said, although she wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry.’
After the incident in church, Evi had driven straight to Gillian’s flat. There had been no response to her continued knocking. In the end, the woman from the shop beneath the flat had told her that Gillian had caught a bus not ten minutes earlier. Evi had had no choice but to return to work. Not long after she’d arrived, she’d taken a phone call from the police, telling her about Joe’s disappearance. She had cancelled her appointments for the rest of the day and then driven for nearly an hour to reach her supervisor Steve Channing’s house. His wife was a partner in a large firm of accountants and they lived in an old manor house in the heart of the Forest of Bowland.
‘No need,’ he said. ‘Now, ready to talk?’
She nodded.
‘The police aren’t connecting Joe’s disappearance with what’s been happening in the town?’ said Steve. ‘With what nearly happened to his sister twice?’
Evi shook her head. ‘No. They’re saying because he went missing in Blackburn and because he doesn’t fit the victim profile, it’s unlikely to be directly connected. The officer in charge of the case thinks the media coverage in the town recently has provoked Joe’s abduction. He thinks someone caught a glimpse of him on TV and took a fancy to him. It’s feasible, I suppose.’
Steve stood up and walked to the window. Across the street, porch lights lit up a row of stone cottages. Christmas trees stood in several of the windows. At the end of the street, a stone bridge led over a narrow river. Earlier, Evi’s arrival had coincided with that of a flock of geese. They’d landed noisily on the riverbank. Evi thought she could still hear them as they settled down for the night. Then she could hear something else. A faint beeping noise coming from her handbag. Someone was trying to phone her again.
‘What do you think?’ Steve asked her.
She couldn’t answer the phone, she could not talk to Harry right now. ‘It seems too much of a coincidence to me,’ she said, forcing herself to concentrate. ‘And it would be just stupid to ignore the possibility that whoever killed the girls has got Joe. I wonder if DCS Rushton is afraid to admit the connection because it means he’s responsible, at least partly. If he hadn’t screwed up on the earlier cases, the killer wouldn’t still be at large.’
Steve stepped away from the window and sat down again. ‘That’s a bit harsh, but you could be right,’ he said. ‘So what do you think is going on?’
‘I can’t imagine, Steve,’ she said. ‘It’s not just three murders and an abduction. We’ve also had blood in the Communion chalice, an effigy hurled from the church gallery, homes broken into, disembodied voices, and a seriously handicapped woman sneaking around and terrifying people. None of it makes any sense.’
Steve just looked at her.
‘Millie Fletcher fits the victim profile,’ said Evi. ‘I think she was targeted from the beginning, from when her family first moved into town. But why on earth would someone who had killed twice, who planned to kill again, play so many stupid tricks? It’s almost as though they were trying to…’ she stopped.
‘Go on,’ encouraged Steve.
‘Warn people,’ she finished, because Steve was looking at her in that particular way of his and she knew he wasn’t going to let her get away without answering. ‘But that makes no sense. Why would the killer try and warn the people who were in a position to…’
‘Go on.’
Oh, why couldn’t she think clearly? Joe’s disappearance had sent her straight into panic mode. ‘The killer wouldn’t warn them,’ she said at last. ‘The killer isn’t responsible for the tricks.’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘Christ, it’s obvious,’ she went on. ‘All this time we’ve thought we’ve been looking for one person. We’re not, we’re looking for two.’