their best to keep her away from the unfolding investigation, moving any lurid headlines out of reach, switching over the channel if it came on the news. It would be next to impossible these days, but in the era of four TV stations and no internet, sheltering your kids wouldn’t have been all that hard.
There’d been a bit of teasing at school, but kids could be pretty brutal without really meaning it. She wondered about the last time she’d seen Dylan, hand-in-hand with his abductor. Had there been fear on his face, or had he been struggling? She didn’t think so.
Soon, she’d learnt the whole episode was like a bruise – if she didn’t press it, it didn’t hurt at all. The bullies had found other victims, other causes, and she was left alone.
She peeled off the gloves and boots as she went back round the house. Andy Carrick was already pulling away in the Toyota.
Bridges was sitting on the bonnet of his car, drinking tea from a Thermos cup. He handed her a piece of paper with an address on the north side of Oxford. There was a blue Audi parked across the road now, and a young woman sitting in the front seat on her phone.
‘Vultures are circling,’ he said.
‘Already?’ said Jo. ‘Who tipped them off?’
‘Probably one of the builders,’ said Bridges. ‘The official line is that we’ve found a body, but there’s no indication of foul play. Ben wants to keep it all under wraps, and I agree.’
‘Ben’s leading?’
‘Sure,’ said Bridges, smiling. ‘Got my best team on it.’ He tossed the remains of the tea across the ground, and dropped the cup into the skip. ‘Let me know how it goes with Mr and Mrs Jones.’
‘Can you send me the original case files?’ said Jo.
‘I’ll get Thames Valley to push it all over,’ said Bridges. ‘It’ll take a while to dig out.’
Then he was in his car and reversing out of the site entrance.
Jo folded the address and climbed into her own car, which had grown stuffy in the brief time she’d been on the crime scene. She switched on the air con. As Ferman lowered himself into the passenger seat, the car dipped noticeably.
‘You don’t like this Ben fella?’ he said.
Jo’s eyes were on the mirrors as she manoeuvred out. ‘It’s complicated,’ she said.
* * *
They joined the M4, skirted Swindon, and approached Oxford from the south-west. With so much on her mind, Jo would have been comfortable with silence, but Ferman was the chatty sort. And though his tone was conversational, Jo couldn’t escape the feeling he was analysing everything she said, like she was a witness all over again.
‘You worked for Avon and Somerset long?’
‘I was at Reading after training,’ she said. ‘Moved across a couple of years ago.’
‘But you’re from Oxford originally.’
‘That’s right,’ she said.
She watched him from the corner of her eye as she drove, carrying out her own appraisal. The suit he was wearing was way out of date, and though spotlessly clean, it was slightly worn on the knees. She wondered if it had come out of a dry-cleaning bag that morning. Shoes polished, but showing scuffs. His left hand (no wedding ring, but perhaps a patch of slightly paler skin where one would sit) clutched the roof handle the whole way, and she wondered if he’d not been in a car for a while. His right hand was yellowed at the fingertips, but she couldn’t smell any smoke on his clothes, and he showed no inkling of wanting a fag now. There was a shaving cut under his jowls.
‘What station are you with, sir?’ she asked, as they came off the bypass.
He chuckled. ‘You mean, what’s an old fart like me doing on your crime scene?’
She smiled. ‘Something like that.’
‘Professional courtesy,’ said Ferman. ‘Retired a few years back. My name was on the file, I suppose. And I’m not “sir” – I retired as a DS.’
‘You live locally?’
‘Aye.’ He didn’t elaborate.
‘Kids?’
‘Not any more.’
She decided not to push. He wouldn’t be the first police officer with unhappy family circumstances.
‘What can you tell me about the original case?’ said Jo. She remembered dimly that there’d been a suspect.
Ferman tried to stretch his legs, but there wasn’t room.
‘There’s a seat adjustment thing at the side,’ Jo said.
After a couple of goes he found it, and edged the seat back.
‘Ah. That’s better. Well, not much to say, really. There was zero physical evidence. We combed the fields down below the circus site – a few scuffed prints, but the grass was long down there and it was a well-known fly-tipping spot. Nothing biological we could use. We knew it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. Like you said, someone had cut the phone line – they knew the police wouldn’t get there and start tracking for at least twenty minutes. Must have had a car parked nearby, and loaded Dylan in. We drew up a profile that night. The kidnapper was male, probably local and knew the area, must have had a car, and had probably scouted the place in the preceding days.’
‘The parents give you anything? Grudges?’
‘Nowt. It looked completely random. We wasted some time going after dad – neighbours told us he could get a bit handy with Dylan, but there was nothing in it. And why kidnap your own child?’
‘Though it would make sense that Dylan went with him.’
‘That was our thinking. Alibi was cast-iron though. He was at a rugby match. The guy who ran the carnival – McTavish, I think he was called – wasn’t very helpful at all. He couldn’t even give us a definitive list of employees, because a lot of the workers were off the books. And thousands had been in and out, because the circus had been there for a week. The clown thing threw us – you were the only witness to the costume, and the other staff said they’d have known if a different clown was hanging around. We figured the suspect must have put on the disguise at the site.’ Ferman laughed. ‘The gaffer had us empty out the chemical toilets – you can imagine how that went down. We found a bag with make-up – lipstick and face paint, the like. High-street stuff, and no way to trace it.’
‘Sex offenders?’
‘We did the rounds, but it was pre-’97, so no proper records of those sorts of crimes. We went on local intelligence back then.’
‘But you made an arrest?’
‘Oh, aye. We thought we had him too. Clement Matthews – lived less than a mile away. Previous convictions for indecent exposure. No alibi worth speaking of for the day in question. Said he’d never been to the circus, or near it, but when we flashed his picture to McTavish, he was
