The Woman in the Wood Read online

  ‘Morning, Lols,’ Sasha said brightly, trying to get the sight of Andrew Dean’s broken torso out of her head. ‘Lovely day.’

  It was hectic as usual. Phones rang across the office as her team chased lines of inquiry across numerous active investigations. The photocopier chuntered on the other side of the office, paper sliding from its innards, a thin beam of light racing along the edges of its plastic lid.

  DC Craig Power tapped gingerly at his computer keyboard with two fingers, examining each key carefully beforehand, as if hitting the wrong one would result in a nuclear detonation. Lolly, who liked a chinwag, chatted with one of the civilian staff about something she had been forced to send back to ASOS. Wrong colour, wrong size, wrong style; Sasha could never keep up.

  In his side office, DCI Vaughn was hunched over his phone, kneading the skin around his eyes with his big fingers. Her boss had been subdued recently, had lost much of his legendary bite, and didn’t spend half as much time prowling around the incident room looking over everybody’s shoulder. Sasha, who knew him as well as anyone in the MIT, had been meaning to take him aside to ask whether there was anything troubling him, but the right moment hadn’t yet presented itself.

  Before she did anything else – before she read her emails or prepared for the morning team briefing, before she checked her diary to remind herself of the numerous pointless meetings that would likely punctuate her long day – she clicked open a browser and typed in Andrew Dean’s name.

  A news article from three years ago appeared instantly, detailing the facts of the disappearance of the girl three years ago in Denbighshire, Wales, which Ajay had told her about.

  FATHER PLEADS FOR NEWS OF MISSING DAUGHTER

  Police have renewed their appeal for information about missing teenager Rhiannon Jenkins, who disappeared nine days ago.

  In a media briefing organized by North Wales Police in Wrexham, Rhiannon’s father, Owen Jenkins, joined Superintendent Sharon Thomas to ask for anyone who has seen nineteen-year-old Rhiannon to come forward with information.

  Rhiannon went missing following an evening at The Red Lion pub near the village of Llandrillo on the evening of 4 May. A distraught Mr Jenkins told the assembled press he was extremely concerned for the welfare of his daughter.

  Joined by other members of his family – including Rhiannon’s aunt Jennie and uncle Davey Jenkins, an independent businessman, with whom Rhiannon was holidaying at the time of her disappearance – widower Mr Jenkins made a direct plea to his daughter to make herself known to police.

  ‘I want you to come home, Rhiannon,’ he told the media, before becoming overcome with emotion. ‘You’re my little girl, you’re all I have left in the world, and I just want you back.’

  Superintendent Thomas told the press: ‘Rhiannon’s family and all of us in North Wales Police are very concerned for her safety. Rhiannon is an independent and outgoing young woman, with plenty of friends, but it is totally out of character for her not to make contact with her family. We have a dedicated team of detectives doing everything to locate her, and we will leave no stone unturned.’

  Detectives are currently piecing together the teenager’s last known movements. She and friends spent much of the evening at The Red Lion, where she met Laid In Essex! star Danny ‘Abs’ Cruikshank, who was holidaying in a cottage nearby with a group of friends, named as Andrew Dean, Jeremy Weston and Tony Gardner. The men, all from Southend-on-Sea in Essex, were questioned by police when an eyewitness reportedly saw them talking to Rhiannon outside the pub in the early hours of the following morning, but they were later released.

  ‘Rhiannon left the pub at half past ten that night and someone must have seen her,’ said Superintendent Thomas. ‘I’m appealing to members of the public who have information about her whereabouts to get in contact.’

  There were plenty of other articles about Rhiannon Jenkins published in the weeks and months following her disappearance. Newspapers followed the twists and turns of the investigation very closely, and the unlikely connection of reality heart-throb Danny ‘Abs’ Cruikshank to Rhiannon’s last known appearance meant the story picked up a lot of national coverage. There were further appeals for information, a reconstruction of the young woman’s last known movements. Hopeful sightings of Rhiannon poured in from all parts of Wales, and the length and breadth of the UK.

  Her uncle, Davey Jenkins, made a number of veiled comments in various papers about what he would like to do to the people who were responsible for Rhiannon’s disappearance. A Mail article published later that year featured an interview with the girl’s father.

  ‘I’M AN ALCOHOLIC AND A GAMBLING ADDICT – AND I FEAR I FAILED MY DAUGHTER’

  Heartbreak of Missing Welsh Lass Rhiannon’s Father

  Owen Jenkins was photographed in his small Cardiff flat looking pale and unwell, and surrounded by numerous mementoes and photos of Rhiannon. In the interview, he spoke at great length, and with terrible anguish, about how he felt he had not been a good parent since the passing of his wife. Rhiannon’s mother had died when his daughter was only a little girl.

  But with each passing month the flood of news stories became a trickle, and within a year they dried up completely, along with all viable lines of inquiry. The case was never solved – the investigation was kept open, but Rhiannon remained missing.

  In all of the coverage, Andrew Dean – if he was indeed the same man who was found dead on the train tracks at Hockley – was nothing more than a footnote. But there were plenty of stories about Danny Cruikshank, the man everybody in the country knew simply as Abs.

  The celebrity connection to the mystery of Rhiannon’s disappearance, as tangential as it appeared, was catnip to journalists, who couldn’t resist shoehorning the famous star of reality show Laid In Essex! into every story about the missing girl. Every single report mentioned the good-looking young celebrity, and every article was inevitably accompanied by a photo of Abs.

  In those images, publicity shots from the show, Abs was usually leaning against the bar in a club, looking rakish and charming. Beneath perfect eyebrows, which arched like fighting alley cats, his come-to-bed eyes twinkled mischievously – look at me, they said, I’m full of youth and sex and fun. He had a thick head of hair, which was swept back over his brow and tied in a knot at the crown, and his tombstone teeth were so dazzling they appeared almost radioactive. Abs had a bit of bumfluff under his chin, which could have been intentional, but Sasha wasn’t sure. He wore a stylish jacket over a hoodie, and jeans with fashionable jagged holes at the knees and on the thighs, some of which were so big it was a wonder the jeans didn’t disintegrate. On his feet were the whitest trainers Sasha had ever seen.

  ‘Lols.’ Enlarging the image on the screen, Sasha hooked a finger at the detective constable. ‘What do you know about this Abs person?’

  When Lolly saw the photo, she let out a screech, which Sasha thought was a little bit over the top.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Lolly’s big blue eyes widened. ‘I love Abs.’

  ‘Why’s he called Abs?’ asked Sasha. ‘Has he got big muscles, or what?’

  ‘It’s his catchphrase,’ said Lolly. ‘It means absolutely. Whenever someone asks him something on the show – like, are you good in bed? – he’ll give this cheeky grin and say, Abs, mate!’

  On the other side of the room, Ajay lifted an eyebrow. ‘Who in polite society would ask a question like that?’

  ‘Wait, you haven’t even seen Laid In Essex!?’ Ajay didn’t have a television, and Lolly simply couldn’t get her head around the fact. ‘You must know Laid In Essex!’

  ‘I know of it, but I’ve never watched it.’

  ‘You’re having me on, mate.’ Lolly’s jaw fell open, as if she was affronted. ‘They’re always asking stuff like that. Do you fancy me? Do you think my dress is sexy? Will you stay the night?’

  A few years back, Laid In Essex!, about the lives and loves of a group of socially mobile young people, was all anyone talked about. It was a TV
sensation and its young cast became stars overnight.

  Some worthies in the county complained that its revolving cast of highly sexed and largely uneducated young men and women, who fell in and out of love and in and out of bed with each other, portrayed Essex in a bad light, and as a result a generation of young women had been forever labelled as airhead ‘Essex Girls’, and young men as oversexed yobs. But one thing was for certain, it put Essex firmly on the cultural map.

  Sasha had watched a couple of episodes with her daughter, Angel – ‘You will so love it, Mum’ – who gave her a running commentary about what was going on. Who was in love with who; which BFFs had fallen out; who was exploring their sexuality; and who was moving in on whose boyfriend/girlfriend. The episodes Sasha watched featured endless scenes of spray-tanned men and women meeting in bars, cafés and nightclubs to talk about why they broke up and to explore the possibility of getting back together, despite the fact they were currently dating other people.

  Abs, Sasha knew, was one of the breakout stars of the show, and shared an addictive will they/won’t they onscreen partnership with LIE! vixen Kelsey DeMarco.

  For a while, Abs was ubiquitous. He appeared on Saturday night entertainment shows – including that thing with Ant and Dec – and she vaguely remembered seeing him in something on Channel 5. He was all over papers, magazines and the internet; his amiable grin was familiar from adverts and sponsorship deals. For a short while, there was nowhere you could go without seeing Abs grinning at you from posters and billboards.

  And then… nothing.

  Sasha couldn’t remember the last time she saw him on the telly, or had even thought about him, and realized his disappearance from public life coincided with Rhiannon Jenkins going missing. Telly producers, advertisers and sponsors must have dropped him like a hot coal.

  Lolly leaned over the screen. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘He was questioned about the disappearance of a girl,’ Sasha told her. ‘Three years ago.’

  ‘I know about that,’ said Lolly. ‘But I don’t care, I still would.’

  Looking up from his computer, DC Craig Power pulled a face. ‘Dear, oh dear.’

  ‘Abs is sex on a stick,’ Lolly told him. ‘He’s the perfect man.’

  Craig smirked. ‘Each to their own.’

  ‘I’m going to marry him one day,’ Lolly told him defensively, and Sasha hoped she was joking. ‘He’s ten times the man you are, Craig. You’re just jealous, mate.’

  That must have hit a nerve, because Craig spun in his chair to face her. ‘As if I’m jealous of that muppet. He ain’t all that. And, anyway, as if he’s going to look at you when he can have any woman he likes.’

  ‘Craiiggg,’ warned Sasha in a singsong, her eyes drifting up to the television screen on the wall. ‘Play nice.’

  ‘Abs, mate!’ London born and bred, Craig did what he believed to be a funny estuary accent. ‘I’m well jel, whatevah, yeah?’

  ‘You think you’re Idris,’ Lolly replied with venom. ‘You think you’re God’s gift, but I’m telling you right now, you ain’t.’

  ‘Now now, team,’ warned Sasha. Lolly and Craig’s unspoken burning desire for each other was becoming a problem. ‘Let’s keep it professional.’

  Craig Power shrugged. ‘I’ve had offers, from model agencies and that.’

  Lolly snorted. ‘You live in a fantasy world.’

  The news report changed on the TV and Sasha recognized Hockley station. She saw patrol cars and vans, crime scene tape flapping at the outer cordon, and realized the footage had been taken this morning.

  ‘You know it’s the truth.’ Craig gave Lolly a sarcastic wink. ‘Some of us have the X factor, that special something, know what I mean?’

  Lolly rolled a finger beside her temple. ‘You’re losing it, mate.’

  ‘Right,’ snapped Sasha, ‘this is all very interesting, but we have things to do.’ She made a shooing movement with her hands. ‘Off you go, Lols.’

  Folding her arms, she sat back in her chair to watch the news report, interested to see if she could be glimpsed in the footage. Nobody could resist trying to spot themselves on television, although it might be difficult to recognize herself among the many identical forensic suits. The camera panned around the car park to reveal the small crowd of onlookers.

  And there it was again – that momentary glimpse of a familiar face in the crowd. Sasha jumped out of her seat and rushed to the table where all three million remote controls that operated the office tech were kept, and began picking them up. She hadn’t got a clue what any of them did, and couldn’t find the right one.

  ‘Who’s got the remote?’ she called across the room to nobody in particular. ‘For the TV?’

  The news report had ended now, and the presenter was introducing the weather person.

  ‘Who’s got the remote?’ Sasha asked again, walking from desk to desk. ‘Honestly, people, it’s like being at home.’

  ‘This one?’ Craig held it up; it had been on his desk the whole time. Sasha pointed it at the screen. Nothing happened, she was pointing the wrong end, so she turned it over to turn up the volume and then rewind the live television feed back to the news report about Andrew Dean’s death. At the moment the crowd appeared in shot and she saw the face, she hit the pause button.

  ‘Right, everybody.’ She clapped her hands to get the attention of the whole room, then reached up to the screen to press her finger to the familiar face in the crowd. ‘I know this man. Tell me where from.’

  ‘Remove your finger,’ someone suggested, and she stepped out of the way so that people could gather around the screen and study the man’s face closely, as if he were a portrait in an art gallery.

  ‘Ring any bells?’ Sasha knew the Met Police in London had a crack team of Super Recognizers, people who were able to remember thousands of faces, more than some computerized recognition systems, but she didn’t have those kinds of resources here. ‘First person to tell me who this man is wins a biscuit.’

  ‘Sasha,’ someone called, and she turned to see DCI Vaughn at the door of his office. He was a big man – her mother would delicately describe him as stout – and his broad frame filled the narrow space. ‘Got a moment?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, and left her team discussing the man in the crowd.

  He stood aside as she walked in, leaving the door ajar. She pinched her toes on his carpet, conscious that once again she was barefooted, because Vaughn didn’t approve of her walking about without shoes in the office.

  ‘Where are we with the death in Hockley?’

  ‘The victim’s name is Andrew Dean. I’ve asked for the post-mortem report to be fast-tracked, we should get that this afternoon, but the cause of death looks pretty cut and dried – he was hit by a train.’

  ‘He got into some kind of altercation at a local pub, is that right?’

  ‘The deceased was from Southend – he lived just off York Road – but, yes, he spent the evening in a Hockley pub, antagonizing the other punters. He was very drunk and aggressive to various people, and was thrown out. Dean had a number of previous violent offences under his belt, for assault, affray, making threats.’

  ‘You think he bit off more than he could chew?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, or he ran into an unfriendly face from the past.’

  Vaughn nodded. ‘British Transport Police are definitely stepping back from this. They say the likelihood is that the motivation for his death originated off rail network premises. So you’ll be taking the investigation forward.’

  ‘I’ll get a couple of detectives to the pub this afternoon to talk to the landlord,’ Sasha told Vaughn. ‘Hopefully, he’ll be able to point us in the direction of some of the other regulars, and we’ll get someone to his bedsit. We’re expecting the CCTV from the cab on the train soon, but all we have at the moment is the driver’s insistence that he saw someone on the platform with a walking stick.’

  ‘A walking stick?’ Vaughn made a face. ‘Doesn’t
sound like a fair fight.’

  ‘Andrew Dean would disagree with you,’ she told him. ‘They’re still finding bits of him.’

  ‘Okay.’ Vaughn scratched the back of his neck. ‘I’m the Senior Investigating Officer, so keep me informed.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Sasha nodded, but didn’t make any effort to leave. She sensed Vaughn wanted to say something else and after a moment’s hesitation he shut the door to the main office.

  ‘I was wondering if you would…’ He looked uncomfortable, unwilling to meet her eye, which wasn’t like him at all, and she noticed he was slightly dishevelled, too. Her DCI was always so smart, and prided himself on his wardrobe of bespoke suits, fitted shirts and silk ties. But the shirt he was wearing looked unironed, as if he had worn it two days on the trot, and there was a stain at the bottom of his tie, a shadow of stubble on his chin. ‘Are you around for a quick drink after work?’

  ‘That shouldn’t be a prob—’ Sasha winced when she remembered.

  ‘You can’t make it,’ said Vaughn. ‘I understand.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she told him quickly. ‘It’s just that I’m meant to be meeting my sister.’

  Vaughn nodded. ‘Another time, then.’

  But she felt sorry for him – he clearly had something on his mind that he wanted to talk to her about – and said, ‘I’m not meeting her till seven. Maybe we could grab a quick drink before that, at six thirty, how does that sound?’

  Vaughn looked grateful. ‘Sounds good.’

  He wasn’t the kind of boss who went for a drink after work and, Sasha excepted, certainly not with anyone from the Major Incident Team. Vaughn was a private man, who always headed straight home to the bosom of his family. She had met his intimidating wife, Miranda, a glamorous woman who ran some kind of charity in the City, and his sons were both on track to go to Oxbridge. Vaughn’s perfect family life often made her feel embarrassed by her own chaotic household.

  So she was shocked when he said, ‘The thing is, Miranda and I have split up.’