CHAPTER 53
Tony and Danny had reached Aelfleda Terrace on Whitby’s East Cliff, a spectacular spot with views high above the harbour, the marina and the town. They stared down into the ravine, snow-topped houses below them and across the harbour to the busy West Cliff. They were standing on the doorstep of a picture-book house with a wonderful view. And they were about to rip it all apart.
The petite, fair-haired woman who opened the door smiled at them expectantly over a pair of silver-rimmed glasses, tugging a heavy cardigan closer to her as she was met by the frosty air of the outside world.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’
Emily Channing’s accent wasn’t the broad Yorkshire of Barnsley or Leeds; it had more than a hint of Teesside about it and yet something different altogether. A local accent for local people, Winter thought.
‘My name is Daniel Neilson and this is Anthony Winter,’ Danny told the woman. ‘We’re investigators working in conjunction with Strathclyde Police.’ It was near enough to the truth to pass scrutiny.
‘Oh.’
This was clearly not what Mrs Channing had expected to be greeted with on her doorstep.
‘I… don’t understand. Strathclyde? That’s Glasgow, isn’t it?’
Winter felt the first puff of the icy ill wind that was going to blow through the Channing’s cosy cottage.
‘Yes, ma’am. This is a rather delicate situation. May we possibly come in? We may have some news about your daughter.’
The woman’s mouth dropped open and she reached out to catch hold of the doorframe.
‘Claire… Have you… have you found her?’
‘It would be better if we could talk inside, Mrs Channing.’
‘Yes, yes. Of course. I’m sorry. Please, do come in. I mean… yes, please.’
Before the woman could back away from the doorway sufficiently for the men to pass, her husband appeared, as tall and thin as she was small and plump. He had picked up on the tone in her voice and concern was written all over his lean features.
‘Ted. These men are from Scotland. From the police. They have… some news.’
‘News?’
‘News.’
‘Is it… um? Um. Come in.’
Winter and Danny were ushered into a floral explosion of a front room with a coal-effect gas fire burning away furiously in the centre of the far wall and invited to take a seat. Danny indicated they would rather stand but it might be better if the Channings sat. The words caused a ripple of panic in Mrs Channing but her husband seemed unruffled by the implications of Danny’s suggestion.
‘Tea?’ Ted Channing asked them.
‘No, sir. Thank you. It might be better if we just…’
‘Terrible cold spell, isn’t it?’ the husband continued to chatter. ‘Although it’s probably much colder and snowier than this where you gentlemen are from.’
‘Ted,’ his wife stopped him. ‘The gentlemen have come a long way. I dare say it’s important.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Channing. I’m afraid it is. We’ve been working on what is often referred to as a cold case.’
Ted looked as if he were going to make some nervous joke about cold being apt but the utter inappropriateness of it dawned on him just in time.
‘We have reason to believe the case we’re investigating is related to the disappearance of your daughter.’
Ted stroked his chin as if he were confused but behind his eyes the fuse had already been lit. His wife sat with her mouth open and hands trembling.
‘Claire didn’t disappear,’ Ted corrected him. ‘She ran away. She said she was going to but we didn’t… didn’t believe her.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Channing. I realise this is very difficult but if I can just explain the circumstances of our visit, then…’
As Danny spoke to the parents, Winter’s eyes and mind drifted to a solid oak sideboard that stood against one wall and was creaking under the burden of a family history in photographs. He moved nearer to survey them and saw Mr and Mrs Channing in various stages of their lives, from a carefree couple in their twenties through to being young parents, then the parents of a teenager. Then there were more, but considerably fewer, photographs of them in middle age and with considerably fewer smiles.
Among them all was the girclass="underline" baby, toddler, child, teenager. Winter watched her grow before his eyes, taller and fuller, freckles appearing and fading, pigtails replaced by flowing locks, braces there and then gone. The constant was the smile; wide and engaging, confident and just a little cheeky. In what he took to be her parents’ last photograph of her, she was in her mid to late teens, hair long and summery blonde, her hand shading her pale blue eyes from sunshine and the wide grin spreading across her face. She had on a bright red T-shirt, which showed off the heart-shaped rhinestone necklace that stood out against her suntanned skin. He wondered how long before she left home and fatefully journeyed north it had been taken.
For it was her. There was no doubt that the photograph of Claire Channing was an incredibly close match for Kirsten Fairweather’s reconstruction model. Winter had a printed photocopy of the image burning a hole in his jacket pocket and he both longed for and dreaded the moment when he would take it out for them to see. They could, he thought incongruously, be sisters. This lost girl in front of him and the girl found on the island on the lake — the one and the same.
His thoughts were interrupted as Danny’s tortuous explanation to the parents flooded back into his hearing.
‘Mr and Mrs Channing, I take it you were familiar with the case in Scotland in which the body of a young girl was found murdered on an island in the Lake of Menteith? This would have been around eight months after your daughter left home.’
Danny let the words hang in the room, as much a test of their reaction as it was a gentle unravelling of the unwanted truth.
‘I’m not sure,’ Ted Channing murmured, seemingly trying to remember. ‘That would have been February — no, March — 1994. Is that right?’
Winter heard the growing impatience that underlined Danny’s reply.
‘Yes, Mr Channing, March 1994. You must remember the case. It received considerable publicity. There were nationwide appeals to try to discover the victim’s identity.’
The word ‘victim’ sent another shockwave around the room and Winter saw Emily Channing shake.
‘I… I think I do. Terrible thing,’ Ted conceded. ‘But what does that have to do with us?’
Tears had begun to run down Emily’s face but her husband didn’t notice.
‘Did it never occur to you or your wife that the girl who was found might have been your daughter?’ Danny continued.
‘Well, no. Not all,’ Channing replied. ‘I mean that was in Scotland. Claire wouldn’t have been in Scotland. She was never going to Scotland. She said she was going to France or possibly Ireland. She never mentioned Scotland.’
Danny let him bluster on, hoping it would blow itself out. It didn’t.
‘Why would we think that might have been Claire? Of course we didn’t.’ He was standing now, getting more anxious. ‘Do you think it might have been Claire? Why would you think that?’
Danny turned slowly from the man and held his hand out towards Winter, who reached inside his jacket and produced the sheet of paper Danny wanted.
‘This,’ Danny explained, ‘is a computer-generated facial reconstruction of the girl who was found murdered.’