felt like she was letting her old teacher down. She’d had lessons weekly from the age of six through to eleven with Mrs Carruthers, rising to grade seven just before her twelfth birthday. It had been her parents’ idea at first, though she’d quickly taken to it, playing for hours on the old hand-me-down her dad had found at a house sale. But after that, with secondary school and other distractions, the practice had started to slip. The piano had been passed on to cousins in Wiltshire. If she could talk to her teenage self now, she’d give her a firm telling-off.
‘I’m afraid so. I haven’t touched a keyboard for years.’
‘I’m much the same, though not through choice,’ said Sally Carruthers. She held up her twig-like fingers. The joints were swollen and misshaped. ‘I can barely manage my own buttons these days.’
Jo wondered exactly how old Mrs Carruthers was. Pushing eighty, in all likelihood.
‘Would you like to come and say hello to Paul?’ she said on the spur of the moment. ‘I’m sure he’d like to see you.’
As soon as she said it, she realised it would be next to impossible for the bent old woman to make it over the fence and back up the garden path.
‘Ha!’ said Sally. ‘I’m too old for parties now. But you must drop in and see me. I’m in most of the time. Just find me in the phone book.’
‘I will!’ said Jo, and she meant it. Though she’d have to locate a phone book first. There was probably one in a drawer somewhere at the station.
‘Right, I must go and dispose of this,’ said Sally, brandishing the can.
‘Okay – see you soon,’ said Jo.
She watched the old woman walk up the rutted path towards her house. Jo headed the other way, back through the garden, feeling lighter in her heart than she had for days. If she closed her eyes, she knew she’d be able to remember the exact lavender scent of the morning room in Cherry Tree Cottage as she played the piano under her tutor’s watchful eye.
She didn’t go back into the kitchen, but instead took the side gate again, climbing into her car. Perhaps leaving without saying goodbye was childish, but they wouldn’t miss her. The music inside was louder, and she really didn’t want to see Paul’s dancing. She was starting the engine when her phone rang. Bridges. She grinned, for some reason sure it was about the promotion. Maybe he felt bad about taking her off the Jones case earlier. There was no other reason for the late-night call and she wasn’t due on shift for another three days.
‘Are you still in Oxford?’ he said straight away.
‘Yes, just leaving actually.’
‘Well, don’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve just had a call about a possible kidnap.’
‘In Oxford?’
‘From a circus in Port Meadow. A kid’s been snatched.’
The mention of a circus gave her a moment’s pause, but she regained her composure quickly. ‘Okay, I’m close.’
‘Jo – you’re not going to believe this.’ Bridges sounded much more animated than normal. ‘It was a clown.’
Jo drove quickly, trying to stay focused on the task in hand. But memories kept rearing up unbidden – the same roads she’d cycled along as a girl, past the houses once occupied by her friends, the pubs she’d drunk in on fake IDs, the alleyway off Walton Street where she’d had a forgettable encounter with Dave Philips. Or was it Mark Philips? Not that it mattered now. In front of the University Press, she heard her first siren, and a car sped past going in the same direction. Then another. Drinkers gathered outside the bars watching the blue lights streak by.
There were signs for the circus too – in town for one night only. Jo knew where she was going without them, and took a left on the way out of Jericho, past the tall student townhouses, over the canal. Port Meadow was a large expanse of farmland spreading right out to the city’s limits, and bisected by a tributary of the River Thames. The first set of gates had been opened up to allow for parking. Two police cars were stationed either side, lights spinning, with officers stopping the queue of exiting vehicles. Jo pulled up just across the bridge, and a uniform came up to the window with a torch angled right in her face. Jo wound the window down.
‘You’ll have to go back,’ he said. ‘We’ve got an emergency situation here.’
Jo flashed her badge. ‘I’m Detective Masters from Avon and Somerset,’ she said. ‘Who’s in charge?’
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ said the uniform, angling the torch away. Out of its dazzle, Jo saw he was really young – maybe not even twenty-five. ‘It’s DCI Stratton from Thames Valley. He’s on site somewhere, talking to the witnesses.’
‘And DS Carrick? Is he here?’
‘He’s about, yes. I’m afraid I don’t know where.’
Jo climbed out and locked up, then started towards the meadow. Beyond the cars she could see the garish lights of the circus rides.
It’s just a coincidence. Has to be.
‘We’ve got checks on all the exit roads,’ said the uniform, ‘Wolvercote, Binsey, Godstow, the canal towpath, and the bridges that cross the river.’
Jo greeted the other uniforms on the gates. They were opening the boot of an estate car, with two excited-looking kids in the back.
It’s too late for that now, thought Jo.
She showed her ID again to the uniforms, and went through the gates. Carrick was talking to some men in high-vis jackets from a company called Securitex, who looked like they hadn’t signed up for anything like this.
‘… no detail is insignificant.’ He handed them cards. ‘I’ll need a full list of personnel from your supervisor. You got that?’
He saw Jo, registered surprise, and beckoned her over.
‘I was only in Horton,’ she said. ‘My gaffer said the suspect was dressed as a clown.’
‘Weird, isn’t it?’
‘I guess so,’ she said non-committally. ‘What’s the timeline?’
Carrick took out his notebook. ‘We got the call at 9.43 p.m. Witnesses estimate the boy was taken at 8.30.’
‘What took them so long to make the call?’
‘Beats me.’
‘You said witnesses plural?’
‘Stratton’s got them in a temporary office,’ said Carrick, pointing across the site to a cabin a couple of hundred yards away. ‘Kids. Hard to get much sense out of them. Looks like there was some sort of altercation. A lad called Niall McDonagh, eleven years old, got taken from somewhere over by the water at knifepoint. One of his friends was assaulted.’
