In the Hunter’s Lane incident room, DI Priestly surveyed his team. The mood was somewhat solemn. It was the third day since Rachel Roberts’ disappearance and so far, there’d been no sightings.
The room showed signs of round the clock use, waste paper bins overflowing with polystyrene cups, fast food wrappers, and half-empty water bottles on the desks. The whiteboards were filling up with information and photographs – Rachel Roberts looked down on them, her cold stare almost mocking their so-far futile efforts to find her. A second image, one of Tom Roberts, reminded the team of the urgency of their investigation.
‘Does her mother have any idea where she might be?’ DS Owen Hardy asked.
‘No. Apparently, there are no friends that Alice Roberts knows of, and she doesn’t appear to have kept in touch with anyone from her university days in Birmingham. Rachel Roberts is very much a loner.’ Claire answered. ‘A real ice queen, this one.’
‘Claire, did you check those dates with the hospital?’ the DI asked.
‘Yes, and they confirmed that Mrs Roberts was admitted on the ninth of June. She must be confused about the date her daughter was with them. It would have been the eighth.’
‘No, I think we’ll find that Alice is correct. It was the seventh – her birthday.’
Claire tilted her head to one side. ‘But she said it was the morning after their dinner when she woke to find her husband missing and rang her daughter.?’
‘That’s a natural assumption for both her and us to make. But it’s been bugging me how Rachel could have got rid of any sign of her father and spirited him away to an unknown destination, all in the few hours between Alice feeling ill and going to bed and waking up the next morning. I think our suspect used her knowledge of drugs to keep her mother unconscious for all of the following day and a second night too. Alice went to bed on the seventh and woke on the morning of the ninth. If you’d like to check with the staff at the pharmacy, I rather think that Rachel Roberts would have taken the day off work on the eighth – she was busy setting the scene at her parents’ home and somehow making her father disappear.’
There was a moment’s silence in the room as Jack’s theory sank in. The cold and calculating nature of this woman was quite staggering.
Owen shook his head in disbelief. ‘So, what are you saying? That she worked through the night and the following day to get rid of her father, to a place as yet unknown, then removed all trace of him from the house in a bid to con her own mother into thinking she was mad and that her husband has been dead for years?’
‘That’s about the long and short of it, but it’s all hypothetical at the moment. Claire, why don’t you make that call to the pharmacy to check whether Rachel was at work on the eighth? That should help us decide if this is a feasible scenario.’
Claire headed out of the room, already tapping on her phone.
‘How far have you got with the CCTV, Owen?’ Jack asked.
‘We picked her up leaving the school with Millie and heading in the direction of her home. A couple of hours later, her car was driving south out of town, but nothing further. If she’s left the area, she managed to avoid the main roads and motorways, and ANPR hasn’t picked up the car since. So either she’s not travelling, or she’s dumped it and is using a hire car. There’s been no activity on her bank cards or any pings on the mobile phone.’
‘Could she still be in the area?’ DC Neil Pearson asked.
‘It’s possible, but it’s not such a big place to hide. If Rachel means to disappear permanently, I guess she’ll be out of the area by now.’ The frustration was evident in Owen’s voice.
Claire Swift returned to the room, a huge smile on her face.
‘You were right, boss. Rachel took the day off on the eighth of June. They remember it because it’s such an unusual occurrence. She’s never off work but apparently needed to attend to some personal business.’
Jack nodded. It all pointed to and was evidence of a premeditated crime. When they eventually found their suspect, she could hardly claim a spur-of-the-moment action. Taking drugs to her parents’ home and taking a day off work was solid proof of forward planning.
The team was shocked at this woman’s callousness, and Jack paused as a hum of whispered comments rippled through the room.
‘And you were right about Tom Roberts’ car too. Traffic found it in the woods near Melkinthorpe. CSI is going over it now,’ Claire added, her respect for Jack Priestly growing as the case progressed.
‘Okay, folks, any other suggestions or ideas?’ Jack brought them back to order.
‘What about the little girl’s father? Do we know who he is?’ DC Elaine Thompson chipped in.
Jack answered. ‘No. Rachel never disclosed his identity, even to her parents and he doesn’t seem to have featured at all in the child’s life. The pharmacy staff seem only to know the professional face of the woman, and she’s far from a popular boss. So it was a surprise to them to learn that she even had a child.’
Claire whistled. ‘Wow, what kind of mother doesn’t talk about her child to her colleagues? It’s unbelievable!’
‘And this childminder we heard about, could she know something?’ DC Elaine Thompson suggested.
Most of the team had watched the tape of Millie’s interview and were appalled by what they’d heard. The childminder seemed to be as heartless as the mother and it was a reasonable leap to think that she might know something or even be in league with Rachel, although a motive for that certainly wasn’t apparent.
‘Claire’s already passed the woman’s name on to social services. I shouldn’t think she’s registered and they’ll be keen to talk to her about her ‘childminding’ business. As soon as we have an address, that’s another avenue we can pursue. Good idea, Elaine.’ Jack smiled.
* * *
Elaine flushed at the hint of praise from her boss. Like the rest of the team, she’d warmed to DI Priestly. His predecessor had been a far less approachable man who was known to shout at junior officers, mistakenly assuming that a display of anger would spur them on to work harder, more efficiently. However, the opposite was true and young officers like Elaine hardly dared to voice an opinion when he was in charge. DI Priestly was proving to be much more congenial, resulting in drawing more out of his team.
‘Any other thoughts?’ Jack asked.
‘Only that our ice queen is a real bitch!’ Owen almost spat the words. ‘How can anyone treat a child in such a way – her own daughter too? Okay, she might not have beaten the girl or starved her, but there’s certainly a case for emotional abuse and neglect, and if the little girl’s right about being left in the house alone, that’s plain unthinkable.’ Owen was a recently new father himself and Millie’s interview tape had clearly touched him deeply.
‘I’m sure we all agree, Owen, but let’s keep our focus on Tom Roberts for now. Millie is safe with her grandmother, but as yet, Tom’s whereabouts is still unknown, so he has to be our priority. We can throw the book at Rachel later when we find her,’ Jack reminded them.
‘What do you think the chances are that he’s still alive, boss?’ Claire asked.
‘I’m sure we all have our own opinions on that one, but until we know otherwise, we’re looking for a man, not a body.’ Jack’s expression said it all. He was unwilling to speculate, always believing that there was hope. ‘How’s the disclosure coming along, Claire?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary to help us, I’m afraid. I checked with the land registry to see if she owned any other properties, but nothing’s shown up. I suppose it would have been too easy if she’d owned a holiday cottage and we found her there with our missing person. But then it’s possible that she could own something in another name.’
Claire’s comments brought to mind an abduction case Jack had worked on several years ago. The abductors took a three-year-old girl and concealed her for fourteen years, passing her off as their own daughter, a girl of the same age who’d died in infancy. They were eventually discovered hiding out at a holiday home in Northumberland, a place overlooked in the search as it was owned in the wife’s maiden name.
‘That’s always a possibility, Claire. But, as I’ve said before, there are so many variables we can’t discount anything.’
‘With this propensity for using drugs that she has, I suppose it’s a possibility that Tom Roberts could still be alive and drugged, perhaps in another property somewhere? After all, she kept her mother sedated for as long as it suited her needs,’ Owen Hardy added.
‘That would be an outcome I’d welcome rather than the alternative, and one of the reasons why we need to remain focused. As a pharmacist, Rachel certainly knew what she was doing. The list of drugs we found at her home is quite staggering, not at all the usual bathroom cabinet medication. For those who haven’t seen the lab report, it’s on the board; check it out. Our old friend Rohypnol is on the list, and I wouldn’t mind betting that’s what she gave her mother from time to time, even while she was in the nursing home. There’s also Zopiclone, a sleeping tablet, traces of which the hospital found in Millie’s blood samples. Rachel had probably used it on her daughter with some regularity and no regard for the long-term effect on the girl’s health.
‘A rather nasty neuromuscular blocker called Suxamethonium was also found, the sort of drug no pharmacist can justify having in their possession. It’s a powerful, fast-acting, muscle relaxant found in anaesthetics. They used to use it in the States to paralyse prisoners on death row before giving lethal injections. It was banned due to disturbing side effects, which begs the question, why did Rachel Roberts have it in her home? The only reasons I can think of are nefarious – the drug is almost undetectable as the body’s enzymes break it down within thirty minutes. A pathologist would have to be specifically looking for that particular drug to find it.’
As Jack’s words sank in, some of the team shook their heads in disbelief. The thought of a mother feeding drugs to her child sickened them. Although it appeared that their suspect had vanished, they were determined to track her down to see justice brought to bear.
‘I think we need to visit the pharmacy to ask a few more questions. Rachel might have been the only qualified pharmacist working there, but she must have used locums. Even ice queens need time off occasionally. Owen, come with me on this one. You can use your charm to get those girls talking.’ A brief look passed between Elaine and Claire as they tried not to laugh at the DI’s inference that Owen Hardy possessed any charm at all.
