‘I’M DETECTIVE INSPECTOR Tate Barnes and this is Detective Inspector Edward Whittacker.’ Tox paused when he got to Sandy. ‘And this is … our associate. We’re investigating the abduction of Caitlyn McBeal.’
‘Oh,’ the man said. He brushed at the front of his grey uniform, fiddled with a name badge that read Bill Perkins: Security.
‘William Perkins. You’re the security guard who gave police a statement about that day, aren’t you?’ Tox folded his arms.
‘Yes.’
‘Interesting.’ Tox glanced at the sunshine streaming in through the side of the lot. ‘Same day of the week. Same hour of the day that Caitlyn was apparently abducted. Wind direction seems to be more or less the same. You hear the screams of a woman, screams that last fifty seconds and you come running.’
‘Yes.’ Bill shifted uncomfortably.
‘You were down there in your little security guard’s hut on the first floor just now, were you?’
‘ Uh-huh.’ Bill cleared his throat.
‘That’s where you said you were at the time of Caitlyn’s alleged abduction.’
‘Yep.’
‘So all the variables are the same as they were on that day. But you said in your statement that you didn’t hear any screams,’ Tox said. ‘You said you heard no screams, no scuffle on the third floor. You said you didn’t see a white van exit the driveway anywhere around that time.’
The security guard looked intently at Sandy. She was the safe place to look. Whitt and Tox’s eyes bored into the man’s face, assessing every muscle twitch.
‘Were you where you were supposed to be on that day, Mr Perkins?’
‘Yes.’ Bill straightened. ‘I was.’
‘Really?’ Whitt raised an eyebrow.
‘Yes.’
‘What if, for example …’ Tox mused. ‘What if I took your head, Bill Perkins, and I put it in the gap of the sliding door of my van here.’ He gestured to the van. ‘And I slammed the door closed, over and over?’
Bill swallowed, looked at Whitt for help. There was none.
‘Would your answer still be the same?’ Tox asked.
Bill started to back up, then turned and ran.
‘Answer the question!’ Tox called. The security guard put his head down and ran for his life. Tox sighed, pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one.
‘He wasn’t in the guard hut that day,’ he exhaled. ‘I don’t know where he was, but he wasn’t there.’
Chapter 56
AFTER SANDY LEFT them, the two men walked to the edge of the car park and leaned on the concrete wall, Tox smoking, Whitt trying to contain his inner horror at his partner’s ‘experiment’. They looked over the edge and across a wide, empty netball court to a narrow green lawn where students were filming interviews with handycams, sitting on wooden benches, now and then glancing at written notes as they narrated their works.
‘Maybe Bill the Security Idiot was in the bathroom,’ Tox mused. ‘Maybe he has a girlfriend on campus he was visiting. Maybe he was listening to music. Whatever the case, it’s possible Linny Simpson was telling the truth. Someone did try to abduct her, and she screamed her head off, and no one heard her.’
Whitt didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse.
‘But the van doesn’t make sense,’ Whitt reminded him. ‘No white van came or went during the times Caitlyn would have been taken.’
‘ Where is she?’ Tox growled. ‘If we could just find her, this would all make sense.’
The two men watched the people on the lawn below them.
‘What are these chumps up to?’ Tox wondered aloud. Whitt looked across the lot at the young people with their cameras.
‘Film class, looks like.’
‘Maybe they have some footage from that day.’ Tox blew smoke into the wind.
‘They’d have heard the screaming though,’ Whitt said. ‘Wouldn’t they?’
‘Not with those headphones on,’ Tox said.
Whitt followed nervously as Tox descended the concrete stairs to the little garden. The students stopped their filming and assessed Tox as he arrived among them. Four of them were gathered around a single camera, thick headphones clamped to their heads. They took down the headphones.
‘S’up?’ Tox jutted his chin at the leader of the group, a lanky late-teenager with a shaving rash and long, greasy dreadlocks.
‘Nothing much,’ the boy answered.
‘What’s this?’ Tox gestured to the group, the cameras.
‘Film assignment.’
‘Been doing it long?’
‘A few months. It’s our major assessment task. It’s due next week.’
‘Hmm.’ Tox rocked on his heels. ‘Let me look at it.’ ‘What?’
‘I want to look at it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I said so.’ Tox shrugged, the gentle, menacing shrug of a dangerous man. ‘Let me look at it.’
Whitt cleared his throat. He understood why Tox was being mysterious with the youths. If there was footage relevant to the abduction of Caitlyn McBeal, Tox and Whitt would need to confiscate it. And that would take a warrant, and a warrant would take time. A search of the students’ footage was technically illegal. Whitt didn’t like all the muscling Tox was doing. But he couldn’t bring himself to stop what was about to happen. His personal and professional ethics were slowly, slowly degrading.
‘We don’t have to show you anything,’ the dreadlocked boy said. Tox didn’t reply. He reached out and grabbed the nearest handycam, plucking it from the grip of a young woman with green hair. He stood in the sun and started pushing buttons on the screen, flipping through dates on the digital files. The students exchanged glances, wide-eyed. Whitt held his hand out apologetically to another handycam holder. The young man gave a confused glance to their leader and then handed over the camera.
‘Who are these guys?’ someone whispered.
‘Should we … call someone?’
‘What’s this all about?’ one of the girls asked Whitt. ‘We’ve got permits. We’re not doing anything wrong.’
‘We’ll just be a minute,’ Whitt said gently. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Any footage of drug-taking on those cameras is strictly staged,’ one of the young people said, eyes on the sky. ‘We’re making a … public awareness film.’
‘Got it.’ Tox showed Whitt his camcorder screen. ‘Ten July. Three pm.’
The two men huddled together, watching the students’ interview on the tiny screen. The camera faced the car park exit, the driveway at the corner of the image. Anticipation churned in Whitt’s chest.
Tox fast-forwarded the footage. The girl on the screen twisted and shivered, her mouth jabbering silently. She was wearing headphones too, doing a sound check. A dark green sedan exited the car park. The footage ended.
The two men exhaled. The students around them seemed to sense that whatever they were looking for was not on their footage. Tox handed the tiny camera back to the girl he’d taken it from.
‘Thanks, guys.’ Whitt smiled. They turned and started wandering away, but after only a few steps he stopped. There was a zinging feeling creeping up from his fingertips. A flush of heat in his throat that even he didn’t know the cause of at first. Suddenly, he realised. It all fell into place. He gripped his partner’s arm.
Chapter 57
‘WHAT?’ TOX GRUNTED.
Whitt’s mind was rushing. He struggled to form words.
‘What?’ Tox repeated.
‘How do we know it was a white van?’ Whitt asked.
‘Linny Simpson said the guy tried to drag her into a white van.’
‘But has anyone else ever said that? Has there ever been a white van connected with the other missing girls?’
‘Well …’ Tox thought about it. ‘No.’
‘It’s always a white van, isn’t it?’ Whitt’s heart was beginning to race in his chest. ‘In the movies. People are always abducted into black or white vans. What if Linny Simpson was right about everything that happened to her except the vehicle?’
Whitt closed his eyes. Remembered Linny sitting before him at the cafe table.
‘She said the van door was closed,’ he looked at Tox. ‘When the guy, the abductor dragged her over to the van, he didn’t manage to get her into the back of the vehicle. It was closed. That doesn’t make sense.’
‘Why not?’