69236538256563

‘Stop asking me to be patient. How can I be patient? My son is missing and if they can’t be
bothered to come down here I’m going to go to them. What’s more important than a piece of new
evidence that they don’t know about? How is it that I can get the immediate attention of any journalist
in the country but not of a single officer investigating my son’s case? Should I take this to the press?
Should I?’
I was waving the book at her, brandishing it in her face.
‘Please don’t raise your voice, Ms Jenner.’
‘I will raise my voice if I fucking well feel like it. I will raise my voice until SOMEBODY
COMES DOWN AND LOOKS AT THIS BOOK!’ I slammed it down on the desk in front of her.
‘THEY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS BECAUSE I WANT MY SON BACK. I WANT BEN AND
IF YOU DON’T WANT ME HERE THEN YOU CAN FUCKING WELL ARREST ME.’
She was no pushover, the receptionist. She spoke to me in a voice that was steel-reinforced. ‘If you
take a seat, I shall phone the incident room once more. If you continue to make a scene I shall ask one
of my colleagues to escort you from the building.’
Up close to the desk, I saw that her handbag was tucked into a corner behind her desk. It had a
newspaper folded on it, and I realised that even here, in this environment, I was probably being
judged through the filter of what was written about me; that the receptionist was seeing, in front of her
own eyes, the Rachel Jenner from the press conference.
John was at my side, and he coaxed me away then, back to the sofa, and I stared at the few people
coming and going through the foyer in front of us with an empty gaze that made many of them take a
second look at me.
Within minutes, a man stood in front of us.
‘DI Bennett,’ he said, sticking a hand out to John first, and then to me. His handshake was painfully
strong, and I didn’t recognise him. ‘Is this it then?’
John stood up and handed him the book and DI Bennett’s big hand seemed to dwarf it. He had a
neck that sat in rolls on his collar, narrow wide-set eyes, and the shiny crown of his head took on the
glow of the ceiling lights.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Do you want to show me what’s worrying you?’
I showed him the pages that haunted me, and he pored over them, brow hunched.
‘I see what you mean,’ he said, and then, ‘He’s a good artist your lad, isn’t he?’
‘Will you show it to DI Clemo, or DCI Fraser?’
‘Of course I will. I’ll do that right away.’
‘Should we stay, in case you have questions?’
‘Honestly, the best place for you right now is at home. We know where to find you, and we’ll be in
touch with any questions or any information we have, I promise you. And if you phone us with any
concerns, at any point, we will always send somebody to talk to you at home about it, there’s no need
for you to come here.’
‘I tried to phone DC Zhang,’ I said.
‘Ah well, she’s a bit busy in a meeting right now.’
‘We wanted to get it to you quickly.’
‘We appreciate that, Ms Jenner, we really do, and we’ll deal with it immediately. I’m going to
personally hand-deliver this to DCI Fraser as soon as I leave you.’
‘Thank you,’ John said.
Bennett tucked the book under his arm. ‘I suggest you both go home and get some rest now. The
more you rest, the better you’ll cope. Thank you for bringing it in.’