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  He ran his gaze up and down her critically, his face puckering up in displeasure.

  ‘Once you’ve done your research, smarten yourself up and we’ll go and pay the husband a visit.’

  She nodded, her face glowing red.

  ‘There’s an iron in my office. When, and only when I think you’re smart enough, we’ll head out to his address and speak to him personally. I’m more than happy to get some fresh air and see what he’s got to say in person, but only if you look like a professional police officer and not something dragged up from a gutter.’

  He gave her the same look as he would give a wilful teenager, but she didn’t miss the glint of good humour and the slight shake of his head as he turned heel.

  Immediately the door closed behind him, and probably before he was out of earshot, Paul let out a loud snigger.

  ‘Charlotte Stafford. What do you look like?’

  ‘Oy, don’t call me Charlotte, only my mother is allowed to call me that. And then only if she is having words with me.’

  ‘I bet you get called Charlotte all the time then!’

  The quip caught her off guard just for a second. She remembered the first time anyone had called her Charlie, many years ago on a sandy beach in West Wittering. The name had stuck with her from then on. She swallowed hard and pinned a smile back on her face.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said and her colleagues burst into laughter.

  She worked with five others: Bet, Paul, Colin, Sabira and Naz, though today Sabira and Naz were on the late shift.

  Paul threw an arm around her protectively. ‘Well, we all love you,’ he paused and squeezed her round the shoulder, ‘whatever the nasty man says.’

  Charlie laughed. Paul was only joking but she didn’t like to hear Hunter called that. The ‘nasty man’ was actually the man she most respected in her life. She’d never known her real father, and her step-father certainly didn’t deserve any respect. Aside from some of the male colleagues she now worked with, there had been few other male influences that had garnered her respect. Out of all her bosses, Hunter was definitely the one she admired the most.

  He was Hunter by name and certainly a hunter by nature, though his look was more prey than predator. At thirty years old, he’d had the appearance of an old man, short, chubby, bald and ruddy faced. Now, as a fifty-six-year-old Detective Inspector, his body was at last representative of his age.

  Charlie loved the man, not in a romantic way; he was old enough to be her father. But he was everything she aspired to be: a fearless leader, a principled, hard-working officer and a thief-taker second to none; but with the added benefit of being highly organized and always punctual. She knew beneath the stern veneer that he loved her, in his own way, too, although he would never in a million years admit it and treated her more like an errant schoolchild.

  Judging by his reaction today, however, she was lucky he had still assigned her to do the enquiries.

  Anyway Paul was only teasing. He could be a mischievous bugger sometimes and she knew that he had long ago worked out that she had a soft spot for Hunter. He only had to mention their boss’s name to get her blushing.

  She put her arm around Paul’s waist and squeezed him back. She instinctively recognized a friend, foe or neutral, almost within minutes of a first meeting, and he was definitely a friend. He also had the knack of seeing through her outwardly hard-working, happy, confident exterior to the insecure, vulnerable soul underneath. Not many people could do that; she put on a good act.

  He was looking rather bleary-eyed this morning. She’d noticed him while Hunter was speaking, sipping carefully from a steaming mug of black coffee. Paul specialized in the sexual orientation and transgender investigations. He was normally immaculately turned out, his blonde, slightly thinning hair gelled carefully and his beard neatly trimmed. Large diamond earrings glinted in both ears and his tongue sported a gold stud which he clicked against the back of his teeth when he was concentrating. Finishing off his smart, man-about-town image were jeans, stylish shoes and a neatly pressed shirt buttoned up to the collar. Today, though, his usual clipped appearance was more dishevelled than dapper.

  Keen to change the subject away from herself she patted him on the back.

  ‘Bit of a heavy weekend eh, Paul?’

  He wiped his brow, pulling an expression of mock indignation.

  ‘You can’t imagine what happened to me on Saturday night, Charlie. I met the man of my dreams, complete with the most amazing nipple rings. Get yourself sorted and I’ll fill you in, so to speak.’

  Charlie nodded. She took off her jacket, tried and failed to brush the creases out of her shirt and trousers, and ran her fingers through her hair for a third time.

  ‘Right, that’s me sorted.’

  Bet looked up from her computer terminal and shook her head.

  ‘What are you like, Charlie? Pop into the toilet and wet your hair down then slip my coat on and give me your stuff. I’ll run the iron over them. Don’t let the boss see you like that again or next time he really will do his pieces. Or worse than that, you’ll be grounded.’

  She did what she was told straight away. There was no way she wanted to be left in the office, if there was a chance of getting out she wasn’t going to argue with Bet either.

  Bet was a friend too, almost twice her age and more like a surrogate mother than a colleague. She was the oldest member of the office, early fifties, apple-shaped, thick, greying hair, smoked like a trooper and married four times. There was nothing Bet didn’t know about the world of domestic violence, both from work and personal experience. Coppers could be just as volatile as the next man or woman and she’d picked a few bad apples in her time.

  Charlie logged on to her computer while Bet busied herself.

  She flitted between listening to Paul’s exploits and dispensing with easy e-mail queries for the first few minutes, before slipping her freshly pressed clothes back on, shielded behind the coat and the computer screen.

  The Monday morning revelations were dying down now. She tapped in the name Hunter had left on her desk and watched the screen start to fill, suddenly desperate to get on with her allotted task. If Hunter saw potential, then it must have potential. And she would be the one to prove he was right.

  Chapter 3

  Julie Hubbard, forty-two years old, married only the once to Keith, was missing with their son Richard, aged fourteen. Their other son, Ryan, aged fifteen, was still with Keith. Both Julie and Richard were fit and healthy, neither had ever gone missing before and there was no suggestion that either might be mentally unstable, suicidal or had a history of self-harm.

  Charlie scanned through the missing person’s report. There was a history of domestic violence; she’d check that out shortly. Julie had no recorded convictions, however Keith Hubbard was known for assault, possession of weapons, affray and public order offences. He was certainly a volatile and violent man. Julie may well have just left him. In fact, reading the report, the domestic situation certainly seemed as if it could be the reason for the two disappearances.

  Other theories were mooted. Maybe Julie had taken Richard out of school early for some kind of mother/son bonding holiday. It was, after all, only two days before the Easter school holidays. Richard’s school was being contacted to confirm whether or not Julie had requested the absence.

  Charlie suddenly thought back to her childhood. Her own mother, Meg, had made a point of having individual “special days” with her and her two half-sisters, Lucy and Beth, since that Wednesday many years ago when the family’s cosy existence had imploded. She had loved those days, alone with her mother, doing her choice of activity. Somehow those random days out with just Meg took away some of her loneliness; but they could never stop her hating Wednesdays.

  The more Charlie thought about the theory of mother/son bonding though, the more she discounted it. It was inconceivable to her that Keith or Ryan, in particular, would not know they had gone away. She remembered the lengths Meg had gone to, to
make sure she, Lucy and Beth were all aware of each and every special day. Her mum was always scrupulously fair and had to be seen to be fair. She had no favourites. Both her husbands had let her down but she loved her three daughters equally, irrespective of their fathers’ failings. No, there was absolutely no way that her mother would have taken one of them away for a weekend, or even a single day, without first clearing it with the others. It would be unthinkable.

  She suddenly felt incredibly sad. She still saw her mother and sisters regularly but they had lost that closeness more recently. Lucy and Beth, the children of Meg’s second marriage, were still teenagers and were living at the family home in Surrey, sharing the same likes and dislikes in music, fashion and boys. Charlie had moved out to a rented flat in Clapham, nearer to work, and was living alone. She missed her sisters and her mother. Even though the drive was less than 45 minutes, she sometimes felt they were a million miles away. Especially her mum. She wished they could talk like they’d used to, but since her brother’s accident it was just too difficult.

  The tannoy sounded and she snapped back to the computer screen, scrolling down to Keith’s statement. Initially he thought they might have gone away for the weekend without telling him so he didn’t bother to report them missing. Then when they didn’t return or contact him he presumed Julie had left him and taken the kid. Things hadn’t been too good between them of late. It was bollocks as far as Charlie was concerned. If he hadn’t known they were going, he should have reported them missing on the Friday night, or certainly by Saturday morning, when they hadn’t turned up. No mother takes one child and leaves the other; unless there was something wrong. Or there was something that Keith wasn’t telling them. Everything in the report left unanswered questions. Nothing made sense. There was something amiss and it started with Keith Hubbard.

  *

  There were three DV reports in total; not as many as other cases she’d dealt with so far, but then, how many more incidents had happened before getting to the point where police were called?

  The facts made horrific reading. Bet had given her the statistics when she’d joined their office and she had them stored in her head for easy consumption. Statistically, domestic violence issues affected one in every four women and one in every six men and led on average to two women being murdered every week and thirty men each year. DV allegations accounted for sixteen per cent of all violent reported crime, but were also the crimes most likely to go unreported and the most common crime leading to suicide.

  A lot of the time the information she stored was useless, but these facts weren’t irrelevant, they were shocking, and perhaps the most shocking of all, that Charlie could not get out of her head, was that on average there were likely to have been thirty-five assaults before a victim called police. Thirty-five! She couldn’t believe it when she first heard that particular statistic and it made her job in the unit that much more significant. She could really make a difference to the dozens of women and men living in fear of day-to-day abuse. If only they would let her. She wondered how many assaults Julie had endured before she’d first picked up the phone.

  According to the reports, the family lived in a quiet residential area, the sort of street where nobody would guess what went on behind closed curtains and would never dream of asking.

  She read the first report. Police had been called to a heated argument between Julie and Keith. It had escalated to the stage where Julie had been pushed around, held against the wall and forced down on to the bed. Nothing sexual had happened, but Richard and Ryan had witnessed the fight. Indeed, it had been Richard who had made the call to police and recounted what he’d seen. It was doubtful Julie would have reported the incident had her son not called it in. Charlie flicked down to the outcome. Nothing much had been done on that occasion. There were no injuries and the two adults had denied anything more than a verbal exchange had occurred. All was calm and they had promised it would remain so. Neither wanted any further action to be taken, but the incident had been recorded and the fact that the boys had witnessed it had brought it to the attention of social services.

  The second incident had again been reported by Richard. The details were much the same, except this time the level of violence had escalated somewhat. There was still no hospitalization, but a couple of healthy bruises to Julie’s cheek and upper arm bore witness to where she had allegedly been grabbed and pushed back against the bedroom wall. A number of items perched on the top of a chest of drawers had been swept across the room, making the scene appear chaotic, with face creams spilling out over the carpet and pot pourri scattered and trodden into the cream. Keith had found himself in the back of a cramped, smelly police van, but the resulting half-day in a cell failed to dull his desire to resort to force and, even though his timid wife had refused to press charges, it had not opened his eyes to the fact that she was now living in fear.

  Worse was to follow, and on the third and final occasion, Julie had ended up in the Accident and Emergency department of their local hospital, having her arm put in plaster where it had been twisted and forced backwards, snapping one of the bones at her wrist. She alluded to having had a fall but refused to make a statement, no doubt fearful of the resulting violence that Keith seemed keen to dole out. Richard had, however, told police what he had seen and this time Keith’s stay at the police station lengthened into a trip to the local court-room on a charge of GBH. True to form, Julie refused to testify and the Crown Prosecution Service decided against putting their juvenile son in the witness box to give evidence against his father. The case was dropped and Keith walked free. He attended an anger management course and, on follow-up calls had apparently sworn to the CSU officer that things had been going well.

  Judging by the latest development, maybe it hadn’t been going as well as he’d claimed.

  Charlie checked which member of the office had dealt with the family. It was Colin. His desk was the other side of the room to hers. She got up to speak to him. He was the straight, white, middle-aged male member of their team, similar in age to Bet but as opposite in every other way as was possible. He was divorced and now single, with barely any access to his two children, who had been taken off to Ireland by a vindictive ex-wife years ago. Thin, tight-lipped and sad, he had a dry sense of humour and made it his business to look after the rights of all fathers and their children. He worked tirelessly with social services, going above and beyond what was normally required to ensure each child could know both parents. Charlie fully expected to see him on TV one day, dressed up as Superman swinging from Big Ben. What he didn’t know about family law was not worth knowing.

  He was poring over his computer screen, his face serious.

  ‘Colin, have you got a minute?’

  He looked up and nodded.

  ‘Do you remember dealing with a family called the Hubbards? Quite recently?’

  He leant back frowning, before rubbing his chin with thin fingers.

  ‘Yes, I do. It was a couple of months ago.’ He scratched his chin again. ‘If I remember rightly, Julie Hubbard, the wife, had her wrist broken by her husband. She said she’d tripped and broken it in a fall but then refused to co-operate any further. One of their sons, Richard, said that his father had done it.’

  ‘I think I know who I’d believe.’

  He shrugged. ‘Everyone thought the same, but what can you do? Richard phoned the police each time. He wanted to give evidence but Julie refused to let him and he did everything his mother asked. With just the one juvenile son as a possible witness, it was pretty much impossible to prove. Why do you ask?’

  Charlie thought about what Colin had just said. For a young boy, Richard had certainly been brave, going up against his dad like that. The kid was protecting his mother in whatever way he could. Maybe Keith had started bullying him too because he resented the way he defended his mum. Maybe that was why Julie left and had only taken him. Ryan was certainly less vocal. Maybe Ryan was safe and she’d only had the time and resources to take
one? There were too many maybes.

  ‘Because Julie and Richard Hubbard are the mother and son that have gone missing.’

  Colin frowned and shook his head.

  ‘Really? Though I have to say I’m not surprised. I always thought there was something strange going on. The boy would plead with his mum to leave his father, but she just wouldn’t; it was as if she had another agenda. On the last occasion I saw them, Richard was literally begging her to leave Keith, but she whispered something to him that I couldn’t hear and he shut up straight away and seemed happier. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’d been waiting until the time was right.’

  ‘But why not take the other son, Ryan, too?’

  ‘He kept out of it really. Didn’t want to get involved. I think he sided with his father a bit more.’

  ‘So did he have a good relationship with Keith then?’

  ‘He probably had to because he didn’t have as close a relationship with his mother as Richard did.’

  ‘So what would be your gut feeling? Do you think Keith Hubbard could be responsible for Julie and Richard’s disappearance?’

  Colin pursed his lips and looked straight up at Charlie.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to say. He is a nasty bastard and could easily have done something, but you know what some women are like. It wouldn’t surprise me if Julie Hubbard hadn’t been planning this all along.’

  Chapter 4

  Charlie’s brain was in overdrive as she headed along the Albert Embankment towards Vauxhall Bridge.

  Hunter sat beside her rubbing his eyes. He always did this when they pulled out of the gloom of the underground car park, as if the light hurt him. He needed glasses really but refused to acknowledge he was getting older and stubbornly refused to wear them.

  ‘Are you all right guv?’

  ‘Fine thanks. Glad to see you’ve smartened yourself up.’ He pulled a large white handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at his eyes a minute longer. Charlie watched, slightly intrigued. He was the only person she’d ever known to use a proper handkerchief, apart from her grandfather. He’d even got his initials ‘GH’ embroidered on the corner, as if to distinguish his from all the hundreds of non-existent identical handkerchiefs he might come across. He pushed it back into his pocket and folded his arms.