Their Lost Daughters (DI Jackman & DS Evans #2)
Joy Ellis
DEDICATION
I was so close to giving up. So, thank you, Jasper, for believing in me and for giving me the opportunity to do what I love.
And thank you, Anne. Your amazing paragraph-pruning and word-weeding skills turn an overgrown flower bed into a thing of beauty!
CHAPTER ONE
For a second Jackman lay still. Then his eyes flew open and he grabbed his mobile phone from the bedside table. ‘Rowan Jackman.’
‘It’s Sergeant Danny Page here, Inspector. Sorry for the early call, but we’ve just received a report of a body on the beach over at Dawnsmere.’
Jackman gritted his teeth. His present investigation involved a missing teenager. ‘A body, Sergeant?’
There was the slightest pause. ‘Yes, sir, and I’m afraid it is a young woman, although that’s all we know until someone can get out there. I’ve got two cars responding, but I’m assuming you would like to deal with this?’
Jackman was already out of bed. ‘I’m on my way, Sergeant. Would you please alert DS Evans for me and ask her to meet me at the scene? And you’d better get the pathologist and some SOCOs down there as well.’
‘Consider it done, sir.’
His shower could wait. Jackman threw open his wardrobe and grabbed a pair of chinos, a warm shirt and a thick sweater. The coast was bitterly cold at this time of the year, especially just before dawn. He pulled them on, found a pair of hiking socks and ran down the wooden staircase and into the hall. He chose walking boots from the rack by the door, checked that he had his warrant card, mobile and wallet all safe in his pocket, and took his old Barbour wax jacket from the hook and pulled it on.
He locked the door to his converted mill-house and ran across the drive to where his car was parked beneath a covered gazebo. He rarely used his garage, preferring the option of a quick getaway. Like now.
*
First light was a weak, watery and dismal affair, but today the chilly grey dawn was probably more appropriate than one of Mother Nature’s more dazzling displays. Jackman gazed around. For a moment or two he tried not to look at the very thing he had come there for.
It would have been generous to call it a beach. Dawnsmere was a bleak spot, a narrow strip of sand and dunes sandwiched between the wild marsh and the cold, uninviting waters of the Wash. But even so, it had a strange beauty, even if that beauty was lonely and austere. The thing that always struck Jackman about these long stretches of fenland coastline was the absence of almost any indication of humanity. There were no colourful beach huts, no deckchairs, no cafés and no amusements, just the landscape and the sea. Right now, if you chose to ignore the presence of the police and their sad find, it looked almost primeval. Gathering himself, Jackman silently ordered his inner philosopher to retreat to a safe distance, and called upon the seasoned policeman to step forward and take charge.
The dead girl lay on her side, her bloated face half buried in the wet, muddy sand. Her clothes clung to her in rags and her feet were bare. Jackman stared at the slender narrow ankles and saw scratches and cuts etched deep into the pale skin. He looked closer and frowned. There were bruises too, lots of them.
He tried not to get ahead of himself. Foul play was always his first thought, but submersion in water could cause massive injuries to the body. He knew only too well that the tides could buffet a frail human against rocks and debris, inflicting all manner of trauma. Jackman reached into his jacket pocket and removed a photograph. The picture showed a slim youngster with shoulder-length light brown hair. A girl with laughing green eyes, a narrow, delicate nose and a wide toothy smile. He stared back down at the lifeless tangle of clothes and unnaturally white flesh and shook his head. It could be Shauna Kelly, but it would take more than a happy snap to identify her. He drew in a long sigh. Their missing girl had no tattoos, scars or other identifying marks, so they would have to resort to dental records, unless one of the distraught parents insisted on seeing her. Frankly, Jackman would walk over hot coals to prevent that happening.
He looked at the body, trying to make some kind of positive connection with the smiling girl in the photo, but apart from similar length hair, there was nothing.
‘Wicked waste. Poor little kid.’ A uniformed officer was standing a little way away, viciously stabbing the toe of his boot over and over into the wet sand.
Jackman recognised the man as being one of the mess-room jokers, a right laugh-a-minute maestro under normal conditions.
He looked at Jackman and hung his head. ‘Sorry, sir. Got three girls of my own.’
Jackman threw him an understanding smile, followed by a lifeline. ‘Do me a favour, Constable? Go and see whether DS Evans has arrived yet.’
The constable nodded, straightened up and loped away from the scene.
Left alone with the girl, Jackman wondered, not for the first time, how they coped with so much death. Dead adults were bad enough, babies were beyond devastating, and children tore his heart out, but teenagers affected him in a different way altogether. There seemed to be so much loss attached to juveniles. They had nearly made it. Almost become what they were intended to be. All that potential was suddenly gone, their untapped talents wiped out in the blink of an eye and their young dreams stolen forever.
The light breeze off the sea rippled the shallow puddles of water that surrounded the girl, making her sodden clothes move slightly. Just for a moment, in the poor light, she seemed to be alive.