“Listen. I’m ringing to say that I won’t be able to make it after work,” said Tristan. “Two of the caretakers are off sick and I have to help out moving chairs and desks for the exams tomorrow.” Kate could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“That’s a pain in the ass.” She clicked on another link and started reading. “Did you know that the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world was Olivier van Noort, and he was also from Utrecht?”
“What’s that got to do with Famke?”
“Van Noort could be a name associated with Utrecht.”
“And Utrecht might be teeming with Van Noorts,” said Tristan.
“This is the problem with searching online. There’s too much information, and most of it is bollocks. We really need to find her because she’s Fred’s alibi for the day Joanna went missing.”
“If she lied back then, do you think she’ll tell the truth to us?”
“I don’t know. I just want to talk to her. Often, it’s the small details, the little bits of information that people don’t think is relevant or important, that lead to something bigger,” said Kate.
“Okay, good luck. Sorry again I can’t help,” said Tristan.
“Good luck with exam prep. See you tomorrow.”
When Kate came off the phone, she wrote a short email to the accountancy firm that had its offices in the same building as Famke’s last known address. She knew it was a long shot, but she explained who she was and why she wanted to get in contact with Famke. Kate had been given the email address for Marnie, Joanna’s old school friend, and she sent an email, asking if they could meet.
After lunch, Kate started looking into David Lamb and Gabe Kemp, and for a couple of hours, she felt like she was chasing the same rabbit down a hole. Then she came across something, buried deep in the twentieth page of Google search results for “David Lamb.” It was a JustGiving fundraising page from 2006. A woman from Exeter had put up a crowdfunding page to raise money for a small community garden in town, which was to be called Park Street Garden of Memories. It was one of the donations that caught Kate’s eye.
Shelley Morden has donated ￡25
in memory of her dear friend, David Lamb.
Missing, but not forgotten.
The JustGiving page had been aiming to raise ￡2,750, but it had fallen short of its target by ￡900. Kate googled “Park Street” and saw that it was a road on the outskirts of Exeter. She then googled “Shelley Morden, Park Street.”
“Okay, this is better,” said Kate under her breath when the first search result came up from the electoral roll. Shelley Morden lived at 11 Park Street in Exeter with a Kevin James Morden, presumably her husband. Kate sat back, her eyes hurting from staring at the computer screen for so long. There was an old BT phone directory that had belonged to Myra on one of the shelves on the caravan park side of the office, and Kate picked it up and blew off the dust. “Let’s try the old-school way . . .”
Kate hadn’t used a phone book in years. She flicked through the pages to the M section, and there was a Kevin James Morden listed at the same address. Kate dialed the number.
After this breakthrough, she was disappointed to get a generic answerphone. Kate left a message explaining who she was and that she wanted to find out what had happened to David Lamb. She went to the little kitchen at the back of the office and made herself a cup of coffee and was about to go outside for some fresh air when her phone rang.
When Kate answered, she could hear children shouting in the background.
“Hello, it’s Shelley Morden,” said a harassed-sounding woman. “I’m sorry I missed your call.”
“Thank you for calling back,” said Kate.
“I knew David. I was the one who reported him going missing, but no one seemed that interested . . . I’m free tomorrow at two p.m. if you want to come over and talk,” she said. “I can tell you all about him.”
15
Hayden’s hands were cuffed to the wooden headboard of the bed, each ankle tied with thin rope to the bedposts. His body was rigid and jerking from side to side, trying to fight.
Tom was kneeling above Hayden, and his hands were wrapped tightly around the young man’s throat, gripping and squeezing.
“Yes, yes. Fight me,” he whispered, leaning closer to Hayden’s ear. “You can’t, can you? Because I’m in charge. I’m the bully, and I’ll win.” He gripped harder, pressing his thumbs down onto the boy’s Adam’s apple. This was the magic spot to press if you wanted to keep the eyes open, thought Tom, and he needed Hayden’s eyes to be open. It was coming. That powerful moment just before death, when darkness falls in their eyes.