‘True, but I don’t take everything she says at face value. There could be more to come out.’
‘Such as?’
‘Don’t forget she headed the original investigation into the Rigden murder. She charged Danny Stapleton and he was convicted. Was she aware at the time that her niece was involved?’
‘The DNA result was four years after that.’
‘Ah.’ Georgina raised a cautionary finger. ‘But what if she knew from the beginning about Joss and chose to shield her, chose even to pin the blame on Stapleton when she knew Joss was up to her ears in guilt?’
‘Are you suggesting Joss murdered Rigden?’
‘He was killed with a gun, we know that. And the girl knew where to get hold of one. Her own father keeps one in his van.’
‘Is this part of our brief, to re-investigate Rigden’s murder?’
She reddened and raised her chin. ‘We’re charged with examining DCI Mallin’s conduct, and I take that to mean the way she led the murder inquiry as well as what happened later. It’s inevitable that we look at the case again. And if we reveal a miscarriage of justice, so be it.’
‘That’s a far bigger job than I thought we were here for. We’ll need to go over it in much more detail with Hen.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep calling her by that ridiculous nickname, as if she’s one of us.’
‘She’s CID like me,’ he said, annoyed with himself for the lapse, but finding it almost impossible to think of his one-time colleague as Henrietta, or DCI Mallin.
‘Her conduct is under scrutiny,’ Georgina said. ‘Let’s try and keep a proper distance, shall we?’
‘As you wish.’ His spirits had nosedived. A prolonged investigation would put intolerable strains on this so-called team effort. The prospect of being in Chichester with Georgina for days to come, if not weeks, was about as appealing as gangrene. ‘We’d better not waste time, then. Shall we call at the nick and get things under way?’
‘You can,’ she said.
‘Just me?’
‘I’ll drop you there. I’m going back to the hotel. Important calls to make.’
He didn’t point out that important calls could be made from anywhere. Any break from Georgina was manna from heaven.
She insisted on telling him what to do, ‘setting the agenda’ as she liked to think of it. ‘Speak to DI Montacute and find out if he was on the Rigden case and who else currently in CID was part of the team.’
‘OK.’
‘And when you get back to the hotel come directly to my room and tell me everything you found out.’
After school, Mel didn’t go straight home. She walked down South Street and over the level crossing to where the police station was. Her calm personality could be deceiving. When she had a cause, she pursued it, regardless.
There was a sergeant behind the desk using a phone.
Mel waited, silently rehearsing what she would say. The fib about the borrowed book wouldn’t work here. It would sound feeble in a police station.
‘How can I help?’
‘It’s about a missing person.’
‘OK. Who’s missing?’
‘I’m from Priory Park School. She was one of our teachers until the summer holiday and then she left suddenly. And now we’ve seen her name on your website, Miss Constance Gibbon.’
‘So she’s already notified as missing? That’ll be the missing persons bureau you’re talking about. It’s a national website. And what’s your name, young lady?’
‘Melanie Mason.’
‘Is there something you want to tell us about Miss Gibbon?’
‘I was hoping you could tell me. We’re worried about her. Well, I am, for one.’
‘Constance Gibbon.’ He typed the name in. ‘Missing since mid-July. Thousands of people go walkabout for all sorts of reasons and most of them turn up later, so I wouldn’t worry unduly about her. Missing children are another matter.’
‘Someone must have reported that she’d gone.’
‘Her family, I expect.’ He checked on the computer. ‘Yes, a sister in Limerick. Long way off. I reckon your Miss Gibbon isn’t answering the phone. Do you know if she was depressed?’
‘She could have been. I can’t say for certain.’ Mel stepped up the pressure. ‘When do you start getting serious about people on that list?’
‘Depends.’ He hesitated. ‘Hang on. There’s someone upstairs dealing with local missing persons. I’ll see if he wants a word. Take a seat.’
Mel found a chair and did some scrolling. The picture of Miss Gibbon on the missing persons website must have been provided by her family. She didn’t look at all depressed. The photo had been taken in sunshine in a garden somewhere. Difficult to feel sorry for her.
Diamond got out at the police station, showed his pass and went up to the CID room. Montacute had reoccupied Hen’s office and had his feet on the desk. He didn’t remove them.
‘Yes?’
He had to fight off a huge urge to do a Georgina and pull rank. ‘Not so busy today, then?’
‘Busy enough. There’s often a lull about this time. How’s your day gone?’
‘We visited your boss.’
‘Ex-boss.’
‘Boss. She isn’t permanently suspended.’
‘Everyone’s saying she might as well be. The high-ups from headquarters have marked her card.’
‘You want to be careful, coming out with stuff like that,’ Diamond said. ‘It can come back and bite you. One thing she mentioned this morning was an investigation into missing persons. Are you part of that?’
‘I had a hand in checking the files and getting the word out to the snouts. But I can’t see it progressing now that Hen is out of it. This was her baby. No one here wants to take on extra work with a senior officer short.’
‘You can’t shelve it.’
‘It ain’t shelved.’ Montacute grinned. ‘It’s on the back burner.’
‘Isn’t this an enquiry spread over several divisions?’
Montacute stroked his beard as if contemplating how much information to give out. ‘I’m being realistic. There wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm from the other stations she contacted. To be brutally honest, it’s better for the crime figures if missing persons stay missing.’
‘Ah, the crime figures.’
‘Do I detect a note of sarcasm?’ Montacute said.
‘Is there a file I can access, to see if Hen had uncovered anything?’
‘I’ve been too busy to look at stuff like that.’
‘Now is a good moment. Can you work the keyboard with your feet up?’
Montacute glared defiance, but removed his legs from the desk and set about accessing the file. With his attitude, he wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in Diamond’s team. Pity he had to be treated with kid gloves, being a key source of information.
Diamond wheeled a chair behind the desk and sat shoulder to shoulder with the obnoxious man. There was more to this than he’d expected. Hen had contacted the divisions at Eastbourne, Brighton, Hove and Shoreham, Highdown (covering Worthing and Littlehampton), Western (covering Bognor Regis and Selsey) and across the county border, Portsmouth, Fareham, Gosport and Southampton. Mostly she’d dealt with CID officers of her own rank, an informal exchange of emails to see what evidence there was of known criminals registered as missing. Some had written back to say nothing out of the ordinary had been noticed. However, she had received confirmation from several others of higher than average figures and their locations seemed to be significant. They were confined to a stretch of the south coast between Portsmouth and Brighton, under fifty miles.
The file also had the quotes Chichester CID had gathered from local informants.
Better not put a foot wrong round here, or you’ll not be seen again.
I don’t know how it’s done, or how much it costs, but I heard if you want to get shot of a stiff it can be arranged.