Free The Missing by Jane Casey Page A

wordlessly. He looked exhausted and upset. Once again, I felt the slow burn of rage at whoever had done this.
    At the front of the room, DCI Vickers was sitting at the centre of a long table. Jenny’s parents were to one side of him and I spotted Valerie Wade not too far away, standing beside Blake. On the other side of Vickers was the press officer who was running the press conference, and beside her was Elaine. I guessed that she had insisted on representing the school, in case there were any questions that might reflect badly on us. She looked terribly nervous. So, it had to be said, did Vickers, who was shuffling his papers and patting his pockets while the press officer introduced him.
    ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’m just going to announce the preliminary results of the autopsy, which we’ve had performed today, and then pass you over to the Shepherds, who would like to make an appeal for information. We’ve been informed by the pathologist that Jennifer Shepherd drowned some time yesterday.’
    Drowned?
    At his words, every journalist in the room stuck a hand in the air. Vickers, who had no sense of the theatrical, was looking through his papers again. My eyes were locked on the Shepherds, who clung to one another. Mrs Shepherd was weeping silently, while her husband looked like he had aged ten years over the course of the past thirty-six hours.
    The press officer selected one of the waving journalists to ask the question everyone was thinking. ‘How did she drown? Is there any chance that this was an accident after all?’
    Vickers shook his head. ‘No. There are suspicious circumstances to do with this death, and we are quite sure that we are not dealing with an accident. These are preliminary results from the autopsy, but the pathologist is quite definite about the cause of death.’
    I flashed back to the woods, to Jenny lying fully clothed in a hollow, nowhere near a source of water. I hadn’t even seen a puddle nearby. Wherever she’d drowned, it hadn’t been where I’d found her body.
    Vickers was still speaking and I stood on my tiptoes, straining to hear what he was saying. ‘We aren’t yet sure where Jenny died, or the circumstances, and for that reason her father, Michael Shepherd, has agreed to make an appeal for information, in case anyone out there can tell us where Jenny was between Saturday evening around six and Sunday night.’
    ‘Sunday night,’ another of the journalists repeated. ‘So that was when she died, you believe?’
    Vickers shook his head slowly. ‘We’re not sure of that at this stage. We’re waiting for further information from the pathologist, but that’s the margin of time we’re interested in at present.
    ‘We want to know where Jenny was during that time, and who she might have been with. We want to know if anyone saw her. We want to know if anyone is acting suspiciously, or has been behaving in a strange manner since the weekend. We want any information that might lead us to her murderer, no matter how insignificant it might seem.’
    Just as Vickers said the word ‘murderer’, Diane Shepherd gave a sob. Instantly camera flashes exploded around the room. Her husband glanced at her, then spread a piece of paper in front of him, flattening it out with his hands. Even from the back of the hall, I could see the tremor in his fingers. At a nod from the press officer, he began to speak, faltering a little, but seeming to be very much in control.
    ‘Our little girl, Jenny, was just twelve years old. She’s – she was a beautiful little girl, always smiling, always laughing. She’s been taken from us too soon. This is our worst nightmare, as it would be for any parent. Please, if you have any information about this crime, anything at all, please tell the police. Nothing will bring her back, but at least we can try to get justice for her. Thank you.’
    He swallowed convulsively as he finished, then turned to wrap his arms around his wife, who was now crying