‘Me being silly? It’s not like I’m asking you to jump out of a plane without a parachute. I’m asking you to attend a small ceremony to remember my father, a man you loved, who you now seem hell-bent on forgetting. I’m not saying any more on this. Turn up, Mum. Just come along for the half an hour it will take. You don’t have to stay for tea and cakes or even make the effort to talk to anyone. I just need you to be there for me.’ In the background, Gracie began to cry and a cat yelped. ‘Gracie. Leave the cat alone. I’ve got to go. Think about it, half an hour, Saturday. That’s all.’ Hannah hung up.
Gina felt a prickling sensation wash over her skin as she flashed back to when she was pregnant with Hannah. She remembered trembling as Terry unlocked the door in the middle of the night. She’d heard him struggling to get his key in the lock. It had taken several attempts. As he reached the top of the stairs, he called out to her. ‘Gina, baby, I need help with my zipper.’ She’d pretended to be asleep as a tear escaped from the corner of her eye. ‘When I say I need help, I mean get up and help. Bitch.’ He’d dragged her from the bed by her hair. ‘Oh, you’re going to get it now,’ he yelled as he undid his own zip. She never tried to resist him, resisting always led to more pain. Gina swallowed the tears back.
Was Debbie going through the same thing? Nausea swept through her body and the palpitations caused her to gasp for breath. She placed her fingers on her wrist; her pulse was high. Was she having a heart attack? She gasped for breath again as the room began to sway. Calm down, she thought. Breathe in and out. In and out. She’d been in control of her anxiety for so long now, but this case was bringing it all back.
An email alert pinged on her laptop. She rubbed her eyes and shook her head. Her breathing was slowly returning to its normal pace and the room had stopped swaying.
It was Wyre’s interview notes. She opened the file and scanned the information. It contained pretty much what Jacob had said. She looked at Charlotte’s interview notes, where she mentioned the assault outside the toilets. Wyre had also made a note that she thought something may have gone on between Charlotte and Samuel at some point, as Charlotte had paused and smiled when they spoke of him being a ladies’ man. Gina began thinking. Maybe Charlotte had said what she had out of jealousy, wanting Samuel to get into trouble for moving his affections to Deborah. Samuel had never had an actual report of sexual assault lodged against him; he was always in trouble for fighting with jealous husbands.
She headed to the kitchen and grabbed an out-of-date pack of sliced cheese and shoved a piece in her mouth. What was she missing with Avery?
She thought back to her conversation with Hannah and felt a lump forming in her throat. Having to face Terry’s family again was the worst thing she could think of. She tried to swallow but she couldn’t, almost choking on the cheese. As she gasped for air, light-headedness took over and she grabbed a chair for support.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t go,’ she said, sobbing. A ceremony with his family would be too much. Hannah thought Terry was the perfect father, taken from her too soon. She didn’t know that the smallest thing would set him off and that her mother could never make him happy. ‘I couldn’t make him happy,’ she yelled as she gripped the top of the chair. She hated herself for saying that out loud. It made it so real. Spoken like the abused person that she had been. The image of Terry lying at the bottom of the stairs, broken and bleeding, flashed through her thoughts. Tears dripped onto the kitchen table as exhaustion kicked in.
She fell to the kitchen floor, only the light of the fridge revealing her tears as she broke down and stared into the dark. What are you going through, Debbie?
Thirty
Tuesday, 5 December 2017
Hailstones beat against the window as Gina swigged the rest of the cold coffee. She’d arrived at the station for a six thirty briefing, and the last hour had gone strangely. Thoughts of the case and her chat with Hannah had kept her awake most of the night, and had been whirring through her mind all morning. Her thoughts were filled by memories of her dark past, the abuse, the case. Saturday, Terry, Briggs, Hannah, Avery, Baby Jenkins and Luke, poor Luke. Deborah, where was Deborah? She’d stared at the case files for the past hour, after chasing the lab for results. She once again ran through the details of the reports from O’Connor and Wyre. There was a knock on her office door. ‘Come in,’ she called.
Wyre entered with a smile on her face and placed a printout of an email on her desk. ‘Check this out. Forensic results on the towel Baby Jenkins was wrapped in.’
Gina lifted the page and smiled back. ‘Let’s hope it gives us a clue to this mystery.’ After a moment of glancing back and forth at the pages, Gina looked up. ‘Traces of red diesel and dog hair, specifically a black dog.’ Gina placed the paperwork back on her desk. ‘Call another briefing now. I’ll be through in a couple of minutes.’
Wyre nodded and left. Gina swigged the dregs of her coffee and headed straight towards the incident room. As she reached the main hub, Jacob arrived, removing his coat and scarf while heading towards the kitchenette. ‘No time for coffee at the moment,’ Gina said. He pulled a tissue from his pocket and held it to his mouth as he continually retched and coughed mucus into it.
‘Sorry about that. Even Abigail deserted me after about half an hour last night. Have we had a breakthrough?’
‘We have a lead,’ she replied. Gina noticed a crusty redness around Jacob’s eyes.
‘What is it?’ he asked as he dropped his coat on a chair.
‘I’m about to brief everyone now.’
He hurried beside her, blowing his nose as he walked. They entered the incident room. Everyone’s eyes were on Gina.
‘We’ve just had the forensics report back on the baby’s blanket. Traces of red diesel and black dog hair were found amongst the fibres. As we are bordering the Warwickshire countryside, I suggest that, to begin with, we make a list of farms and country businesses within a ten-mile radius. O’Connor, I’m going to task you with the research. I want the name and address of every business that is operating in this area. Everywhere you go, everyone you interview, look out for a black dog. This could be the key to finding Deborah Jenkins. Wyre, check with all the local vets. We’re looking for owners of black dogs. I know there will be stacks of them but we may be able to cross-reference later on.’
‘Have we had the DNA results back on Mr Jenkins as yet?’ asked O’Connor.
‘No. I’ll keep you updated. I’m sure it is just an elimination test though. Right, as you were. Let me know of any developments as soon as they come through. Jacob and I will be speaking to Deborah’s colleagues today. In turn, we’ll keep you updated at all times. Thank you.’
O’Connor swivelled in his chair to face his computer screen. Wyre was adding the new information to the incident board and everyone else spoke quietly, sharing thoughts and notes.
Jacob followed Gina towards the kitchenette. ‘Time to grab a quick coffee before we head out,’ she said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘It’s much worse when I first get up. Give me an hour and I’ll be back to my usual good-looking self. I’ll go and have a good blow of my nose before we leave, shift some of this snot,’ he said with a smile. His unshaven face and wonky tie said it all. He’d had about as much sleep as she’d had.
‘I was looking over the workplace interviews this morning,’ she said. ‘I remember the director quite well, Lynne Hastings. I gave her a call this morning. All but one member of staff is still working there and they’re all in today. Oliver Stain died six months after Deborah disappeared. His mother had picked him up on the night of Deborah’s disappearance and he’d gone with her to the pub to have a family celebration. He was never a suspect.’
‘What are you thinking now?’ Jacob asked.
‘There was a colleague, Callum Nelson, that we briefly considered, but nothing ever came of it. Not after initial investigations. But I need to go over this again. We’ve missed a trick somewhere.’