Chapter 6

Chapter 6

‘Sorry the car’s such a state,’ says Martin as he manoeuvres his Rav4 out of the station car park and onto the main road.

‘It looks fine to me,’ replies Jennie. And it does – there’s no untidiness that she can see.

Martin shakes his head. ‘The kids are at that really messy age, you know? Me and Kath wouldn’t be without them, of course, but they’re a hell of a lot of work.’

‘I can only imagine.’ Jennie has never wanted kids. She’s never wanted a partner either. Trusting someone enough to let them into your life, to give them the opportunity to hurt you? No, that’s not her thing at all.

Martin indicates left at the roundabout, taking the road out of town towards the Lakemead development. ‘So I found out a bit more about the victim’s dad. He remarried a few years ago and works for Waterside Garden Centre, the big one over near the new shopping village, with his wife, Shelly.’

‘And moved to a different part of town?’ says Jennie.

‘Yeah, he’s moved around a bit over the years. He left the house he’d shared with Hannah about six months after she went missing, then it looks like he lived in a few different flats in the town centre over the next twenty plus years, before moving into the house in Lakemead last year.’

Lakemead is a smart new housing development designed around a couple of large man-made lakes. There’s a yoga studio and an artisan bakery along with a gastro pub, a beauty salon and a variety of different water sports options. House prices on the development are a good ten per cent higher than in White Cross town. ‘Did he have anything on record? Arrests, charges?’

‘He’s stayed clean for a long time,’ says Martin, indicating right and turning into Lakemead. ‘There’s just a couple of drunk and disorderlies on there from back in the day, but nothing after Christmas 1994.’

‘Okay, good work,’ says Jennie, looking out of the window as they go over the bridge that crosses the smaller of the two lakes and get their first glimpse of the development beyond. The houses are painted in pastel colours: baby pink, powder blue, mint green. To Jennie they look more like American stucco properties than the sort of homes you usually see in the Chilterns, but maybe that’s the appeal.

Beside her, Martin lets out a long whistle. ‘From the Chairmaker’s Estate to here? Paul Jennings definitely looks like he’s living his best life.’

Not for much longer , thinks Jennie. She turns to Martin, her tone serious. ‘Show a bit more compassion; we’re about to tell him his daughter’s dead.’

Martin looks contrite. ‘Yeah, course. Sorry, boss.’

They leave the car parked on the street and walk up the driveway. The house is painted baby pink and looks like a three or maybe four bed, with a garage on the side and a porch with matching olive trees standing either side of the door. Jennie reaches the door first. She can’t see a bell, so she raps three times using the chrome knocker.

Paul Jennings opens the door. Wearing a beige cardigan over a tattersall checked shirt and chinos, he’s leaner and greyer than his picture in the old case file. He looks from Jennie to Martin and the colour seems to drain from his face. ‘You’ve found her, haven’t you?’

‘Mr Jennings, I’m Detective Inspector Jennie Whitmore, and this is Detective Sergeant Martin Wright. Can we talk inside?’

Opening the door wider, Paul Jennings steps back to let them enter. His face is ashen, his eyes are watery, and his energy is subdued. He’s nothing like the aggressive, angry man Jennie remembers Hannah talking about.

As he leads them along a tastefully furnished hallway, she wonders if Paul Jennings recognises her. There’d been no flicker of recognition in his gaze, and he looks too upset to be capable of masking his reactions entirely. But then, she’d only ever seen him once before and that was from a distance; Hannah was never keen to hang out at her house if her dad was around.

Paul leads them into a bright living room. He gestures to a homely looking lady in jeans and a navy jumper who is sitting on one of the armchairs. ‘This is my wife, Shelly. Please, take a seat.’

He sits down on the armchair beside Shelly’s, leaving Jennie and Martin no choice but to sit on the small sofa opposite the armchairs. It’s only a two-seater so they’re forced to sit far closer together than they would usually. It’s awkward but she perches on the edge of the seat, her focus on Mr Jennings. ‘Would you like to get yourself some water or a cup of tea—’

‘I don’t need tea,’ he says, curtly. His expression is a mixture of hope and fear; after many years of delivering this kind of news, it’s a look Jennie knows all too well. Paul clasps his knees with his hands, his knuckles quickly turning white. ‘Look, we watch the news. The body found at the old school – it’s Hannah, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ says Jennie. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’

‘Oh Jesus.’ Jennings slumps forward, his head in his hands. ‘I can’t … I knew …’

Shelly puts her hand on Paul’s back, rubs him between the shoulders. ‘It’s okay, it’ll be okay.’

‘It won’t be though, will it?’ counters Paul. He looks up at Jennie. ‘Where was she found?’

Jennie hesitates, her breath catching in her throat as she remembers Hannah’s eyeless skull looking up at her from the bottom of the muddy trench.

‘In the basement of the school building,’ says Martin, bluntly. ‘She’d been buried.’

Paul lets out a loud sob. ‘So someone killed her?’

‘That’s what the evidence suggests,’ says Jennie, recovering her composure. ‘We believe she was strangled, but we’ll know more after the post-mortem. In the meantime, I’ve opened an investigation into her death.’

‘That’s more than your lot did when she disappeared. They didn’t give a shit about her,’ says Paul, bitterness in his voice. ‘A couple of weeks poking around in my life and then they had the cheek to say she’d just run away. Bastards. If they’d have investigated properly maybe she’d be here now, maybe she’d be alive.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ says Jennie.

‘I just …’ Paul shakes his head. He flattens his palms and presses them hard into the top of his thighs. ‘Look, I want to help in any way that I can.’

Shelly puts her hand on his arm. ‘Paul, you know what the doctor said about not getting stressed.’ She looks at Jennie. ‘He has a bad heart.’

‘I’m fine, love,’ says Paul, putting his hand over Shelly’s and giving it a squeeze. ‘I need to help them find out who did this to my sweet angel.’

‘Thank you,’ says Jennie to them both. She’s trying to focus on the job but it’s so weird talking to this man who Hannah described as aggressive and violent. She realises she still feels cowed by him, but she can’t let old feelings distract her. She’s the one with the power now. ‘It would really help if we could go over a few details from the night Hannah disappeared.’

‘Of course, not a problem,’ replies Paul, keeping a tight hold on Shelly’s hand. ‘I was in construction back then, working nights building a new motorway slip road over on the M40. I’d left for work around five o’clock, as usual. Hannah was out when I’d woken up just after four, and still wasn’t back by the time I left, but that was pretty normal. She liked to study with her friends.’

‘Do you have the names of these friends?’ asks Martin, looking up from jotting notes onto his scratchpad.

Jennie stiffens, wondering if her name is about to come up.

Paul thinks for a moment. ‘Lottie and Elliott were the main ones, I think, but she mentioned a couple of others. Rob, I think, and Stephen – no, sorry, it was Simon. She’d had the same group of mates for years.’

Not me?

Relief and irritation mingle inside her. She’s glad Paul didn’t name her but it brings back the feelings she had when Hannah disappeared. No one spoke to her or asked her any questions – not Hannah’s dad, the teachers at school, or the police. It was as if she didn’t exist, had not been a part of Hannah’s life. It was heartbreaking at the time, but she can use it to her advantage now. There’s no record of her in the case file, nothing to show how close she was with Hannah. Nothing to prevent her leading this case. ‘Thank you. What else can you tell us about the night she disappeared?’

‘Well, you see, that night my machine broke down partway through the shift.’ Paul fidgets in his chair. ‘The engineer on-site couldn’t fix it right away as one of the belts or gizmos had snapped and needed replacing but there weren’t any spares to hand, so the supervisor sent me home.’

‘Do you remember the name of the supervisor?’ asks Jennie.

Paul runs his hand through his close-cropped greying hair. ‘No, sorry, it was a long time ago and it wasn’t the regular guy that night.’

‘Okay, go on,’ says Jennie, trying to get past how odd it feels to be talking with Hannah’s dad as if Hannah were someone she’d never met.

‘Anyway, so when I arrived back Hannah was home. I went into her room to say hello and that’s when I found her packing clothes into a rucksack. I was gobsmacked. I mean, why was she packing her stuff? She was meant to be studying hard for her exams and looking after me while I worked all hours, not buggering off to God-knows-where.’ Paul glances from Jennie to Martin, clearly looking for sympathy. He shakes his head. His tone switching from annoyed to full of regret. ‘I’m sorry to say I didn’t handle it well. I mean, I was tired and pissed off that I’d probably get my wages docked for the hours I couldn’t work even though it wasn’t my fault. So it didn’t take much to wind me up. I asked Hannah what the hell was going on and banned her from going out. But she didn’t listen. She just grabbed her bag and stormed out of the house.’

Jennie looks at the downcast man in front of her. She keeps her voice gentle as she probes further. ‘Were you worried about her storming out?’

‘Yes and no,’ says Paul. ‘You have to understand, Hannah was a very highly strung girl and she’d often explode at me and storm out, but she always came back a few hours later, or perhaps the next day after spending the night at a friend’s house, once she’d calmed down. But she always, always came home.’

‘But she didn’t come back that time?’ probes Martin.

Paul shakes his head, his voice cracking as he says, ‘That’s when I called your lot.’

Shelly squeezes his hand. Martin glances at Jennie.

‘Did you have any idea why she’d been packing the rucksack?’ asks Jennie.

‘No, not right then, but later I assumed it was to do with the modelling.’ Paul lets out a soft sigh. ‘I’d known she’d wanted to be a model but it just seemed so pie-in-the-sky for people like us. I told her to be realistic, even banned her from talking about models and modelling, but it didn’t do any good. I only found out she’d gone behind my back after I’d received a call from a modelling job in London asking why she hadn’t shown up. It totally floored me. She was already missing by then though, so …’

As Paul breaks down, Shelly gives Jennie and Martin a stern look. ‘That’s enough. His heart can’t take all this. Please, think of his health, he’s been through so much.’

Haven’t we all? thinks Jennie.

As she stands up to leave, Jennie hands one of her business cards to po-faced Shelly, but looks at Paul as she says, ‘Thank you for sharing that with us. We’ll be in touch as and when we get updates, and we might need to speak to you again. In the meantime, if you think of anything else, no matter how small or seemingly unrelated, please get in touch.’

Martin tucks his notepad back into his pocket and gets up to follow. As Jennie moves back across the room, she realises there are no pictures of Hannah here. There’s a set of black-framed wedding pictures with Paul and Shelly smiling down from the wall behind the sofa, and a collection of silver-framed photos on the wall unit, but none include Hannah. If Hannah really was Paul’s ‘sweet angel’, wouldn’t he want at least one picture of her in his lounge?

Paul hurries up behind them as they reach the door. Turning, Jennie sees the anguish on his face. ‘Mr Jennings?’

‘Find them, please,’ says Paul. His eyes are damp, his voice pleading. ‘Find who did this to my little girl.’