Two Little Girls. Kate Medina

we just can’t take that chance.’

      The truth.

      He left the sitting room and she spat the pills into her palm and slipped them into her pocket.

       10

      Marilyn stood at the front of the incident room and contemplated the hastily assembled team. Sarah Workman had looked washed-out on the beach, but he’d put it down to the light filtering through grey clouds; now, under the harsh fluorescent strips, her skin was a sickly pale grey and she looked even worse. Already the stress of the case was taking its toll, and there would doubtless be sleepless nights and soaring stress levels to come for all of them. He met her gaze and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but was more likely a maniacal grimace. Nothing about this case promoted a genuine smile.

      ‘Good evening, everyone. I won’t keep you for long, as we have a lot to do.’

      A photograph of the dead girl was already tacked to the whiteboard behind him, where it would stay throughout the investigation. Once they found out who she was, it would be joined by one of her alive, smiling preferably, looking like the undefiled child she had been, reminding everyone why they were here, who the eighteen hour days were for.

      ‘As you all know, the body of a young girl was found in the sand dunes at West Wittering beach earlier this evening.’ He glanced down at the notes he’d scribbled, though he knew everything, what little they had so far, by heart. ‘I don’t have much to give you, I’m afraid. Dr Ghoshal will perform the autopsy tomorrow, but his preliminary assessment is that she was killed by strangulation. She was wearing what looked to be a school uniform – white shirt, navy-blue jumper and navy trousers, no identifying school badge – and her clothing wasn’t disturbed, so it is unlikely that she was a victim of sexual assault, though of course the autopsy will confirm or refute that.’ He paused. ‘A doll in a pink ballerina dress was found by her side. The doll had black marks drawn around its neck with felt-tip pen. The black marks aped the strangulation bruise marks around the little girl’s neck.’

      His gaze scanned the assembled faces as they digested the information. A stranger could be forgiven for thinking them indifferent; Marilyn knew better, knew that the little girl’s murder had touched them all deeply, just as Zoe Reynolds’ had done two years previously.

      Arthur Lawford, the exhibits officer, raised his hand. He had been with Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes longer even than Marilyn, a solid thirty years on the job and still a sergeant, a role he was more than happy to languish in until retirement. Not everyone could be the star player; not everyone wanted to be. Lawford had been the exhibits officer on the Zoe Reynolds case, and along with Marilyn and Workman he’d lived through the disaster it had become.

      ‘A doll, sir?’ The inference clear.

      Marilyn nodded. ‘Similar.’ He paused. ‘The same. Identical, except for the colour of her … of its eyes.’

      Lawford frowned. ‘Its eyes, sir?’

      ‘What colour were the eyes of the doll we found by Zoe Reynolds’ body, Artie?’

      ‘I don’t remember, sir.’

      ‘Brown. They were brown, weren’t they?’

      Lawford shrugged. ‘I don’t remember.’

      ‘Think about it, Artie, think. They were the same colour as the little girl’s, weren’t they? Brown? The same colour as Zoe’s eyes?’

      He scanned the room again. Its occupants stilled, the usual background noises – the shifting of bottoms in seats, crossing and uncrossing of legs, the rustle of clothing – had ceased. He knew what they were all thinking. Only DC Cara was new to the team. The rest had worked with him on the Zoe Reynolds case, had been party to his unswerving conviction that Carolynn Reynolds had murdered her own daughter, had watched him wilt, shrivel, as the trial progressed and it became clear that they hadn’t secured enough evidence to convict. He couldn’t afford to get emotionally involved in this second murder case, had to maintain a professional distance. Easier said than done.

      ‘Check will you, please, Artie, and let me know,’ Marilyn said as casually as he could manage.

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      Tapping the whiteboard behind him, Marilyn indicated the list he’d scribbled. ‘Our priorities are to identify the dead child and interview her parents; interview the woman who found her body; get uniforms on the ground in the beach car park, the village centre, on the road in and out of East and West Wittering villages and on the knock to try to locate some witnesses. We need to construct a detailed timeline of the little girl’s movements, from when she left her school – whether that was alone, with one or both of her parents, or with a friend or friends – to when she was killed. Most prep-schools finish at three-thirty, so there isn’t a lot of time between her leaving school and her meeting her death. That suggests to me that the school is local to the beach, in Bracklesham Bay, East or West Wittering. There can’t be many, so let’s find out where she was a pupil quickly, based on her uniform. Lastly, we need to find Carolynn and Roger Reynolds, Zoe Reynolds’ parents. Though this is something I won’t be disclosing to the press, I would be very surprised if this second child’s murder isn’t linked to Zoe’s. I made enquiries earlier this evening and it appears that the Reynolds have disappeared.’ Run. He didn’t say it.

      ‘Are they suspects, sir?’ a voice from the back of the room asked. ‘Is she a suspect?’

      A knock on the door saved Marilyn from having to answer the million-dollar question to which he hadn’t yet formulated a balanced, unprejudiced answer. DC Darren Cara stepped through the doorway, holding up a piece of paper.

      ‘I think we have a name for the little girl, sir – Jodie Trigg. Call just came through. The mother got back from work half an hour ago and found her daughter missing. Her bed looked as if it hasn’t been slept in. The description of her daughter matches that of the dead child.’

      ‘And Jodie Trigg’s mother has just realized that she’s missing now?’ Marilyn said angrily. He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s knocking midnight. The little girl has been dead eight hours, for Christ’s sake.’

      Cara gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.

      ‘What about friends and relatives?’ Marilyn asked. ‘Has she checked with them?’

      ‘She has a sister in Bognor Regis, but Jodie isn’t there. The mother – Deborah, Debs Trigg, she’s called – lives at Seaview Caravan Park in Bracklesham Bay. She called park security and asked around her neighbours and Jodie hasn’t been seen since she left for school this morning. She’s a pupil at East Wittering Community Primary. I tracked down the school’s headmistress and she confirmed that Jodie was at school all day today, though she did mention that Jodie is not the best attendee and often turns up late. She also confirmed that the children wear a navy-blue uniform. Only the blazer has the school badge on it.’

      Marilyn nodded. ‘And the child wasn’t wearing a blazer. Thorough job, DC Cara. Thank you.’ His gaze moved from Cara back to the assembled team. ‘Have we had any other calls about missing children?’

      A mass shaking of heads. Marilyn raised a surprised eyebrow. Typically, when a serious crime made the news, their phones rang off the hook with people eager to get a slice of the macabre action. The over-helpful, the hoaxers, the gloaters, the ghouls and the common or garden nutters: the whole gamut. This was the reason he had only ever appealed one case on Crimewatch – Zoe Reynolds, driven by utter desperation after her mother had been released and all other investigative avenues closed. A Crimewatch reconstruction could be useful for jogging memories, but it inevitably resulted in a deluge of information, most of it entirely useless. But he had been surprised, back then too, at how few hoax calls they’d received when Zoe’s murder was re-enacted on BBC One: an unexpectedly compassionate response. It seemed as if this second murdered little