The Broken Afternoon (DI Wilkins Mysteries Book 2)

THE BROKEN AFTERNOON Also by Simon Mason A Killing in November This ebook published in 2023 by An imprint of Quercus Editions LimitedCarmelite House50 Victoria EmbankmentLondon EC4Y 0DZ An Hachette UK company Copyright © 2023 Simon Mason The moral right of Simon Mason to beidentified as the author of this work has beenasserted in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act, 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publicationmay be reproduced or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopy, recording, or anyinformation storage and retrieval system,without permission in writing from the publisher. A CIP catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library Hardback 978 1 52941 571 1Ebook 978 1 52941 572 8 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,businesses, organisations, places and events areeither the product of the author’s imaginationor used fictitiously. Any resemblance toactual persons, living or dead, events orlocales is entirely coincidental. Ebook by CC Book Production www.riverrunbooks.co.uk For Eluned CONTENTSThe Broken AfternoonAlso ByTitleCopyrightDedication ONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHTNINETENELEVENTWELVETHIRTEENFOURTEENFIFTEENSIXTEENSEVENTEENEIGHTEENNINETEENTWENTYTWENTY-ONETWENTY-TWOTWENTY-THREETWENTY-FOURTWENTY-FIVETWENTY-SIXTWENTY-SEVENTWENTY-EIGHTTWENTY-NINETHIRTYTHIRTY-ONETHIRTY-TWOTHIRTY-THREETHIRTY-FOURTHIRTY-FIVETHIRTY-SIXTHIRTY-SEVENTHIRTY-EIGHTTHIRTY-NINEFORTYFORTY-ONEFORTY-TWOFORTY-THREEFORTY-FOURRead On . . .12ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ONEPoppy Clarke, four years old, standing in the sun-dazzled gateway of Magpies. Giggling.Deep in the heart of rich Oxford, Garford Road glowed in the heat, a moneyed hush of rustling copper beech, murmuring voices of girls from the private schools, muted conversations of construction workers at the Edwardian villas under renovation – and Poppy’s laughter ringing out bright as summer birdsong as she danced on the spangles of sunshine on the gravel driveway of her nursery school, waiting for her mother at four thirty on a July afternoon.It was a game, their usual game. She knew where he was, she could see his shadow on the bright pavement. Pausing, she watched carefully as she knew she was supposed to. Her eyes shone. She clapped her hands. She jumped round in a circle, all dimples and ribbons in her red and black pirate costume, the season’s craze. Still smiling, she shook her head sternly and wagged her finger. Covered her eyes with her hands, snatched them away, and burst out laughing again.Briefly, she turned and looked at the nursery building behind her, where her mother was talking to a friend, but there was nothing to see there except a boring empty doorway, so she turned back to the street. She looked shyly, but only pretend-shyly; really she was watching between her fingers in that clever, sly way she had. And soon she was giggling and jumping up and down, until, when beckoned, she skipped forward. And when her mother came out a few moments later she had gone. TWOTen hours later, five miles away, in a poky shed-like office smelling of engine oil and instant coffee, night-watch security guard Ryan Wilkins broke the long hours of his shift by catching the news on repeat. Two o’clock in the morning, night rain creeping with tiny claws across the plastic roof. He turned up the volume and leaned in.On the screen: his former partner, Detective Inspector Raymond Wilkins, flanked on one side by the new Superintendent and on the other by the Thames Valley Police crest in gilded carpentry, fronting a presser. A little girl gone missing. Her picture appeared, an irresistible advert for the human race with her blonde curls and dimples, her bunched cheeks and shining eyes, appropriately pleased with herself in pirate costume, eye-patch and cutlass, ribbons and sash. Vanished from outside her Oxford nursery while her mother talked for no more than two minutes to her teacher in the lobby. A picture of the nursery appeared too, a snippet of sculpted beech hedge and immaculate lawn – another advert, for parental serenity, priceless at fifteen grand a year. From which, in broad daylight, a little girl had been snatched. Upper-middle-class England was freaking out. In the echoey conference room journalists shouted questions over each other.DI Wilkins said they were following a lead but declined to give details, and Ryan turned him off and sat there in the sudden quiet staring out of the window at the rain-crackly darkness of the van compound beyond. He could imagine the situation. A news shout so quick wasn’t ideal – things were still too messy – but the timetable of sensational cases was driven by the media. A lead? If real, probably the father; Ray pointedly hadn’t mentioned him and the disappearance of very young children was mostly the result of parental disputes. Ray would be good at dealing with that, smooth and tactful. He’d looked good on television too, no denying it. Cameras loved him, tall and black in his uniform; they loved his serious features, educated tone, the way he paused between sentences, the firm shapes he made with his strong hands, the resolute look in his eyes. Handsome Ray. The thinking woman’s law enforcement.Ryan considered his own reflection in the window. Skinny white kid in nylon uniform, a discount purchase from myworkwear.com. He looked at his overlarge nose and attention-seeking Adam’s apple, quick eyes under scratchy brows, shiny smear of scar tissue down his left cheek, a grimace about to happen, a fidget coming on somewhere – Ryan Earl Wilkins, twenty-seven years old, trailer-park rat boy, one of the youngest ever detective inspectors in the Thames Valley force, dishonourably discharged three months ago, now working nights at Van Central, off the Botley Road. Boom. Hero to zero in three minutes. Or two and a half.Still, Ryan was never down for long; he always revived, without warning or indeed reason, his optimism an inexplicable part of him, unasked for, like his nose, his fidgets or his beloved son, Ryan Junior, nearly three years old, by far the calmest and most discerning of all the Wilkinses, asleep now at home with his Auntie Jade. Grinning at the thought of him, Ryan was turning on his broken-backed swivel chair to put the kettle on when his eye was caught by a tiny blip in the corner of the security screen. Gone almost before it had happened, but not too quick for Ryan.