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“I understand. Which class did Grace miss?”
There was another pause. “Grace didn’t attend any of her classes today.”
Matthew glanced at his watch. It was almost eleven thirty. Andy Fraser had called headquarters just after eleven. This system did not appear to have worked.
“I’m not sure I understand. Grace’s first class would have been, what, eight thirty? Eight forty-five?”
“It was my fault,” broke in the blond woman who was sitting behind the counter. “I didn’t check the alerts. We don’t usually do it before recess, because so many kids are late. I usually check the alerts around eleven thirty and then I call all the parents at once, you see?”
“Thank you, Becky,” Gabriel said sharply. She gestured for Matthew and Sarah Jane to follow her into her office and shut the door firmly behind them. “Obviously it’s less than ideal that we didn’t check the alerts earlier in the day, but as I tried to explain to Mr. Fraser this morning, we simply do not have the capacity to provide extra security or supervision for one individual student. This is a public school. We have to think of the needs of all of our students equally.”
“Understood.” Matthew was not going to take the time to explain to her that in his view, taking three hours to let parents know that their kid hadn’t shown up to school was less than adequate supervision for anyone. “Do you have any idea where Grace Fraser may have gone?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“You have cameras,” Sarah Jane said. “I noticed some around the front. Is the footage recorded?”
“I... don’t know,” Gabriel said. “You’d have to speak to our security officer, Mr. Lambe. If you follow me, I’ll escort you to his office.”
They followed her as she led the way out of the administration building, across a courtyard, and down a flight of stairs into a long, badly lit corridor.
“The whole situation is a tragedy, of course, but I can’t help but think that the Frasers need to take a little more responsibility here,” she said, in an aggrieved tone.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Matthew said.
“Well. With both girls running away, it does call into question what’s happening in the home, doesn’t it? Clearly something isn’t right there. Not that I lend any credence to any of the wilder rumors that are going around...” She let her voice trail off and paused long enough to give Matthew a look that suggested that she was lending credence all over the place. “And I understand why they’re casting about, looking for other people to blame, but really, it’s very irresponsible to point fingers at young Simon Jordan, which is certainly what they’re trying to do. A lovely young man. Very much in love with their daughter too, which makes it all the sadder.”
She paused at a door that had once upon a time been painted a bright, cheery blue, but was now stained with years of dirt and grease. She knocked briskly, a schoolteacher’s knock, and opened the door.
“Mr. Lambe? These police officers would like to speak to you about any security camera footage you might have from this morning.”
The room behind the door was grim. The only window was a small one. The floor was gray linoleum, well worn and a little grubby. There were shelves with old cleaning supplies and, toward the back of the room, a desk with a computer that looked like it might have been obsolete ten years before. A small electric heater in the corner of the room pumped out heat. The man seated behind the desk was overweight and unshaven. There were dark patches of sweat under each armpit and the room smelled strongly of stale alcohol and body odor. Lambe gave them an appraising look from behind the desk.
“I can help you out there. Anything in particular I can help you with?” He moved his mouse and clicked something. The screen was tilted away from the door so that it wasn’t possible to see the content unless you crossed the room and looked over his shoulder.
“Grace Fraser,” Matthew said. “She’s missing. Her father dropped her to school at eight thirty A.M. and she never made it to her first class.”
“I can look for her on the cameras, sure, but if she ditched class, she probably went out through the back. No cameras back there. Budget doesn’t stretch.”
Matthew looked at Cally Gabriel, but she made no attempt to clarify Lambe’s casual statement. Gabriel’s hand was pressed to her mouth, and she was wrinkling her nose.
“If you’ll excuse me, Detective. I have a busy morning. If you need anything further I’ll be in my office.” She withdrew with an audible sigh of relief. In other circumstances, Matthew might have had some sympathy—the smell combined with the heat made the room an unpleasant place to be—but it seemed to him that Gabriel had completely failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation.
Lambe was smirking at him like he knew exactly what Matthew was thinking.
“I’m Burlington PD, retired,” he said. “Grace is Nina Fraser’s sister, correct? I understand your concern, but most likely she ditched. All the kids do it, and I guess she has better reason than most.” He gestured to them to come closer and pointed at his screen. “The system we have is pretty good. I can play back the cameras from this morning. See if we can spot her.”
He did that, quickly and competently. They watched the morning procession unfold, the cars arriving, the kids unloading. Lambe fast-forwarded quickly until he got to 8:27 A.M., then slowed it down. He was the first to spot Andy Fraser’s car pull in.
“There,” he said, pointing at the screen with a finger stained yellow from cigarette smoke. “That’s Grace, right?”
They watched as she disappeared into the school, past the range of the cameras. They watched Andy enter the school administration building, watched him leave twenty minutes later. Lambe let the tapes run. They watched the school clear out. There was no sign of Grace Fraser leaving the campus.
“There was a man at the gate this morning,” Matthew said. “Harassing Andrew Fraser. Do you have a camera at the gate?”
Lambe shook his head. “’Fraid not. But if he was out there, he didn’t come in here.” He gestured at the screens, as if they proved his point. “Cameras would have caught him.”
“You said Grace probably ditched and left through the back, where there are no cameras?”
