Peter James - Perfect People

‘Crime scene officers.’

She shook her head. ‘I have to find my children.’

‘We’ll help you find them. Hop in, you’re going to freeze to death like that.’

A two-way radio crackled. The driver leaned forward and pressed a button. ‘Charlie Victor Seven Four, we have just arrived on scene.’

The man in the passenger seat held out his hand. Naomi took it and climbed in, then pulled the door shut. A fan was roaring; hot air began toasting her feet, blasting on her face.

She shook her head, the giddying heat making her feel faint and disoriented. ‘Please help me find my son and daughter.’

‘How old are they?’

‘Three.’

‘Don’t worry, love, we’ll find them.’

The van moved forwards. She watched the hedgerows passing as if in a dream. ‘They weren’t in the house when we woke up,’ she said numbly.

‘We’ll find them, don’t you worry.’

The kindness in his voice made her burst into tears.

The van clattered over the cattle grid and onto the gravel. Sobbing uncontrollably, she saw the ambulance, its doors shut, side window screened off from view, the first police car she had seen earlier, and two more. There seemed to be police everywhere. Three were standing in the garden wearing flak jackets and holding rifles. No sign of the shot man; she presumed he was in the ambulance.

There was a tape barrier sealing off a wide area in front of the house where the shot man had lain, with two uniformed policemen in caps standing in front of it. As the van pulled up, yet another car appeared, a dark Volvo saloon, bristling with aerials, this one with four uniformed policemen inside it.

‘Where do you think they might be, your kids?’ the crime scene man asked.

‘I-’ She shook her head, opened the door and clambered quickly out. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. In a daze, she mumbled a thank-you and walked towards the taped-off front door. One of the uniformed policemen raised a hand and said in a kindly voice, ‘I’m sorry, madam, would you mind using the kitchen entrance.’

She went round to the side of the house. The kitchen door was shut and locked. She rapped with her knuckles. A uniformed policewoman opened it. It might have been the same woman she had spoken to earlier, in the car, her face streaked with blue light, she wasn’t sure. Then John, still in his dressing gown, was walking towards her, hair matted to his head, face sheet-white. He put his arms around her.

‘Where have you been, darling?’

‘Have you found them?’ Naomi sobbed. ‘Have you found them?’

‘They’re around somewhere,’ John said. ‘They must be.’

She sobbed back at him. ‘THEY’VE GONE! SOMEONE’S TAKEN THEM, OH GOD, SOMEONE’S TAKEN THEM!’

John and the woman police officer traded glances.

‘Our children have gone, John – don’t you get it? Do you want me to spell it out to you? Do you want me to spell it out to you backwards with every fourth letter missing?’

Two uniformed officers came into the kitchen. One looked about nineteen years old, tall and very thin, and rather green. Slightly odd, still wearing his cap inside, Naomi thought inconsequentially. The other was older, stocky, with designer stubble and a shaved head. He held his cap in his hand and had a kind smile. ‘We’ve searched every room, all the cupboards and roof spaces. We’ll go and check on the outbuildings. Garage and greenhouse, right? And the dustbin shed? Any other outbuildings that we haven’t seen, sir?’

John, soaking wet and shivering with cold, said, ‘No.’ Then to Naomi he said, ‘Got to get you into some dry clothes. Go have a shower, I’ll deal with everything.’

‘We need to go back out,’ she said. ‘They might be down at that pond on the Gribbles’ farm – they might have fallen in.’

‘Get some proper clothes on and we’ll go out and look. We’ll find them, they’ll be somewhere around.’

The stocky officer turned to the younger one. ‘I’ll check the outbuildings. You start a log of everyone who enters the house.’

Just as Naomi left the kitchen to go up and shower, there was a rap on the door. John opened it to see a tall man of about forty, with dark, wavy hair, dressed in an unbuttoned, rain-spotted mackintosh over a grey suit, white shirt, sharp tie and shiny black lace-up shoes. His nose, squashed and kinked, looked like it had been broken more than once, giving him the thuggish look of a retired prize-fighter.

‘Dr Klaesson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Detective Inspector Pelham. I’m the duty Senior Investigating Officer.’ His tone was courteous but brisk. Extending his hand, he gave John’s a brief, firm tug, as if more would have been eating into valuable time, his sharp, grey eyes assessing John as he spoke. Then, a tad more gently, added, ‘I’m sure you and Mrs Klaesson must be feeling a little shell-shocked.’

‘I think that’s an understatement.’

‘We’re going to do everything we can to help you. But I’m afraid we’re going to have to seal this house up inside and out, as a crime scene, and I’d like you and your wife to pack a bag with your essentials and enough clothes to last for a few days, and move out.’

John stared at him in shock. ‘What?’

‘No one’s been in the house,’ Naomi said.

‘I’m sorry, it’s standard procedure for a major crime scene.’

Two men suddenly came in from the garden without knocking. They were wearing white suits with hoods up, white overshoes and rubber gloves, and each carried a holdall.

‘Morning, Dave,’ one said nonchalantly.

‘Morning, Chief!’ said the other breezily, as if they were just a pair of interior decorators turning up to paint a hallway.

The young uniformed police officer took their names and noted them down in his log.

‘Where – where do we move out to?’ John asked the DI.

‘Do you have any relatives you could stay with nearby? Otherwise a hotel or a boarding house.’

‘Relatives, yes, but not close. Look, we don’t want to leave here, not without our children.’

Detective Inspector Pelham nodded in understanding, but not sympathy. ‘I’m afraid you are both going to be required to come to the station and make statements. Someone will drive you. We’re already looking for your children, and the helicopter will be overhead in a few minutes. I suggest you get dressed, and you and I and Mrs Klaesson have a cup of tea here in the kitchen and run through a number of things I need to ask you.’

‘I want to go out and look for them.’

‘I have officers out there looking in the immediate vicinity already. Your children are three years old?’

‘Yes, but-’ John checked himself.

The detective inspector raised his eyebrows, quizzically. As if in response John added, ‘They are quite grown-up for their age.’

‘All children are these days, Dr Klaesson.’ The policeman’s inscrutable expression eased fleetingly into a thin, wintry smile. ‘Have they ever done this before?’

‘Wandered off? No,’ Naomi sobbed.

‘We can’t make any assumptions at the moment,’ DI Pelham said. ‘But I think at three years old, we should work on the likelihood that they are not far away – although in view of what’s happened we’ve put out an alert to all airports, seaports and the Channel Tunnel as a precaution. It would be helpful if you could let me have a recent photograph of them. But don’t worry, we’ll find them.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘You’ve never seen this man – outside your front door – before? You have no idea who he might be?’

The Detective Inspector noticed the strange glance John and Naomi Klaesson gave each other.

Even after a hot shower and dressed in warm clothes, back in the kitchen Naomi could not stop shaking. It took all her concentration to fill the electric kettle and push the plug in. Moments later, as it began to hiss and rumble, she heard a much louder roar, like thunder, outside.