Clean Cut by Lynda La Plante Page A

gestured for one car to head round the back to join Brandon and the second to come with her to the front door.
    ‘There’s been no answer at the front door, but someone’s inside. I think you need to give a big loud bang on the door and make yourselves obvious. If still no one opens up, break it down.’
    Brandon was relieved to be accompanied by one officer; the other began sloshing through the mudtowards the outhouses. Closer, the stench of the pigs made him feel sick. He heard the loud banging at the front door just as he reached the back one.
    ‘Police! Open the door! Police!’
    Brandon tried the back door; it too was locked. He stepped back, put his shoulder against it and gave a strong push, then another, but it took both him and the officer with him to burst it open.
    At the same time, Anna, with her two officers, had broken down the front door and entered the hallway.
    ‘Police! Come out and show yourself! Police!’
    A terrified little girl wearing a pair of pyjamas toddled out of the back bedroom. Anna bent down and opened her arms.
    ‘It’s okay, little one. Come here–come on, come to me.’
    The child seemed rooted to the spot, so Anna had to walk very slowly towards her. She turned to the officers and quietly told them to search the front room where she thought she had seen the curtain move.
    Anna bent down to be on the child’s level. ‘Where’s your mummy?’
    She began to cry.
    ‘What’s your name? I’m not going to hurt you. Why don’t you just come to me and tell me your name?’
    The child started to scream as the officers came out from the front room. ‘No one in there.’
    Meanwhile, Brandon was looking around the kitchen; piled with dirty dishes and used pans, it looked as if a meal had been prepared and left on the table. He walked into the hall.
    ‘Nobody’s in the kitchen, but someone left in a hurry.’
    Anna had by now calmed the little girl, and was carrying her in her arms. ‘I don’t know if she can talk, but she’s soaking wet, and we’ve no one in the front room.’
    Brandon nodded and then opened a bedroom door: dirty sheets and three unmade beds, plus a child’s cot. Toys strewn everywhere.
    ‘Empty; let’s try this one.’
    This was the only room they had not yet looked into. He eased the door open very quietly and then hung back, before he slowly pushed it wide open.
    This was the main bedroom: a double bed, again with unmade sheets and very untidy, but no occupant.
    ‘Where’s your mummy?’ Anna again asked the little girl who was now silent; she smelled strongly of urine and possibly more. ‘Is your mummy outside?’
    It was at this point that the officer who had been looking around the outhouses and huts appeared at the back door.
    ‘Nobody out there, but we’d need more men to have a thorough search. Place is really run down; there’s some hens in a pen and pigs and a goat, but nothing else moving.’
    Brandon shrugged. ‘What do you make of this?’
    Anna carried the little girl into the children’s room, and sat her down on a small child’s armchair.
    ‘Do you know where your mummy is?’ she tried again.
    No reply. Anna sighed; the child was totally mute, staring at her with wide, terrified eyes.
    Brandon stood in the doorway. She looked at him.
    ‘Listen, should I change her, put her in dry clothes? She’s soaking wet and she stinks.’
    ‘I wouldn’t–it’s up to you.’
    ‘Can I get you some nice dry clothes?’
    The child shrank back from her.
    It was then they heard a jeep driving up, an old Shogun that sounded as if the exhaust had fallen off. By the time Brandon had reached the front door, a woman had jumped out of the Shogun and was running towards the bungalow, screaming.
    ‘What’s going on? What the hell is going on?’
    She was tall and skinny, wearing jeans and Wellington boots, with a man’s jacket tied round her waist over a stained T-shirt.
    Brandon blocked her at the front door. ‘Gail Sickert? I am Detective Inspector