Unlikely Graves (Detective Inspector Paul Amos Mystery series) (8 page)

‘You say John called in to see you for a while after he left. Did Rita ever come back?’ Amos asked.’

‘No, never,’ Quinn shook her head. ‘John didn’t mention her either and I couldn’t bring myself to ask after her. I don’t see what I could have done unless Rita reported her father and I’m sure there was nothing amiss, really, but I couldn’t help just wondering after it was too late whether I did right.’

Quinn looked at Amos as if for reassurance. The inspector knew she should have alerted social services but in his opinion they were mainly a bunch of interfering busybodies who did as much harm as good so he decided to leave the unasked question unanswered.

‘I say John didn’t mention her but he did, just once … well, sort of. He just remarked that Rita was all right now and didn’t come home anymore and that was it. He changed the subject and that was the last I saw of him. I took it as an accusation.’

‘Did Rita have any particular friends who might know where she is?’ Amos asked.

Quinn shook her head sadly.

‘It was all so long ago,’ Quinn replied sadly. ‘The price of giving children a good education is that they move on. Good for them but not for those of us left behind. Lincolnshire is a big county. It used to be big enough to keep them in. Now they can’t wait to get out.’

Chapter 19

The team gathered as agreed at 12 noon at a fish and chip shop with a restaurant attached in the High Street. It was not yet full swing in the holiday season, since the schools had not broken up for the long summer vacation, but Skegness was still very busy, mainly with older people plus a fair sprinkling of young parents with pre-school age toddlers. The season effectively lasted for three months. Amos knew it was vital that the resort made most of its money within a short timeframe. The inspector had driven one car and Det Sgt Juliet Swift the other. He had told her to park the marked police car anywhere convenient as long as it did not cause too much of an obstruction. Finding a legal parking place would be a challenge but no-one was likely to book a police car and if they did the ticket could easily be cancelled.

Amos drove into the town centre from the school and spotted an empty parking bay just off Lumley Road, which ran roughly parallel with the much narrower High Street. He would be there much longer than the time allowed even had he bought a parking ticket but at least he was not on a double yellow line. He was well in time for the meeting so he took a stroll along the sea front to consider the situation. One line of inquiry, the girls, had ground to a halt without getting even close to the man who lay dead on a slab in the mortuary. They would have to get at the dead man through his son or daughter.

Fate had transformed the family. It was not just that the children had done well academically. Even the father had found some means of moving from a downbeat back street to a very pleasant home in a firmly middle class neighbourhood. Then fate had turned fickle and dashed their hopes. The daughter had disappeared without trace. The son likewise, perhaps to end up years later on a rubbish tip. And now the father, too, consigned to oblivion. The sunshine was exhilarating but as Amos walked back to the High Street he felt an increasing sense of foreboding. The school had provided some insight into the family but not much that took the inquiry forward. Perhaps the others had also got nowhere much.

By getting to the chip shop early, before the lunchtime rush to feed overweight holidaymakers with excessive portions of chips, Amos was able to commandeer the one large table, at the far end away from the kitchen and takeaway area. The others arrived pretty much together. Amos suggested that as there was so many of them they should order straight away so they could be served before more people arrived. While they waited for the food, Amos said: ‘Without saying anything sensitive within anyone else’s hearing, has anyone got any lead as to what happened to John or Rita Randall?’

This was slightly comical, as the waitress had disappeared into the kitchen and no other diners had arrived. In any case, he need not have worried. The other seven all shook their heads. Swift spoke for all of them when she said: ‘They had plenty of friends but they gradually lost touch when they went to Cambridge. No-one else from their year did.’

Chapter 20

Just as everything looked bleakest, DC Michael Yates came riding to the rescue. Or rather, the team who had a day out at the seaside came riding home to find that the Cinderella they left behind had traced Christine, the girl at the centre of Mrs Daley’s tragic story. It had taken all day and the Education Department was not best pleased but the department and Park Road school between them finally worked out who she was and where she lived.

Christine Evans was 22. There was no need to have her parents present at the interview, though that had not stopped other mothers from inviting themselves. If neither Christine nor her parents, assuming they knew that she was talking to the police, asked for a chaperone then Amos was not going to raise the possibility. He was in no doubt that the fussy, doting mothers who viewed their daughters as angels had thwarted his interviews. The girls had been reluctant to tarnish their saintly images, Amos was sure, but he had wanted to keep the chats informal at this stage. After all, there was no suggestion that any of the girls was involved in the murder or that they had committed any other crime.

Evans had her reason for shunning parental control, one that soon became readily obvious to the easily embarrassed Amos. The inspector eyed her up, as he would anyone he interviewed whatever their age or gender, while trying not to make it obvious that he was doing so. This caused Evans considerable amusement, which discomfited Amos all the more. Being eyed up by older men she apparently took in her stride. She probably doesn’t even mind being mentally undressed by them, Swift thought with just a little disapproval, despite having had a more broadminded upbringing than Amos had been blessed with.

Amos had confided in her during a period of depression that lasted on and off for several weeks. Cases were going badly and his relationship with his wife was strained. He had just needed someone to talk to and Swift, who had herself just begun a promising relationship with a burly car mechanic and amateur rugby union player, offered a sympathetic ear.

The inspector had been brought up in an austere, middle class household. As a child he had been sent to Sunday School at the local Baptist Church, morning and afternoon, during a period of several years when attendances were waning. He and a boy who was learning to play the organ had become the sole juvenile attendees at the morning session, along with a church deacon who ran the Sunday School and his wife, who joined in the hymns as she polished the brass memorial to those who had lost their lives in the forces during the first world war. The morning session was abandoned when, at the age of 13, Amos graduated to the evening service. This was younger than the norm at their church but he was getting bored with what he came increasingly to regard as the babyish Sunday School with its annual prize day where the only qualification for the reward of third rate juvenile fiction was simply turning up. In any case, the young Amos was beginning to have his doubts about religion, becoming increasingly distressed that he could not square what he was told at Sunday School with what he saw in the world around him. At least the evening service occupied one hour against the split shift of Sunday School which, in two one-hour sessions, effectively stretched from 10am to 3pm.

In particular, Amos was greatly troubled that he could not accept the concept of an all loving, all seeing and all powerful god. Any two from three was possible but all three together could not account for the troubles of the world, nor for the fact that the overwhelming majority of god’s creatures were eaten alive. To add to his anguish as he struggled with this betrayal of all he had been brought up to believe and the nagging fear that he might rot in hell for allowing his doubts to overcome him, he felt unable to discuss the matter with his parents or his siblings, who retained their innocent faith. Mr and Mrs Amos senior were not bad parents. They brought up their children to be decent, law abiding, charitable individuals. They did not mistreat their offspring and although money was fairly tight the family was well fed and well clothed. It was just that the word love was never mentioned in the home despite its Christian ethos. There was no doubt that the parents did love their children, whose wellbeing they put before their own, but they never told them. There were never hugs and kisses.

As Amos struggled through three traumatic years of accepting that he no longer believed in god, he similarly struggled with relationships with the opposite sex. He had gradually come to terms with being estranged from the supreme creator; he had never realized that girls had physical desires and needs just as boys did. This stunted emotional upbringing left Amos utterly unprepared for what was about to be unleashed. Even Swift, who did understand how girls ticked, had no inkling as she watched the short, dumpy but undeniably sexual young woman ease back in her chair, deliberately pushing up her breasts and displaying an unnecessary amount of thick thigh to provoke Amos.

Evans clearly shopped at cheap but trendy boutiques where you could buy brightly coloured, risque clothes to wear half a dozen times then throw them to the bottom of the wardrobe as they started to come unstitched. Today’s colour was red, a light crimson pelmet skirt with a pink floral top, its scalloped neckline emphasizing her female shape. Evans crossed her legs with a coy smile and, having increased the amount of flesh exposed at one end of her body, threw back her pony tail, which had been draped down one side of her neck, with a well practised flick of her head.

‘So you’ve come about Harry Randall. What kept you? You seem to have been round half the town. Why was I left to the end? Were you afraid of me?’

‘Did you know him?’ Amos asked, ignoring the girl’s taunt. He was starting to hope that, at last, here was a girl who would admit that she did.

‘Yes, I knew him. He was a dirty old man,’ she replied with a short laugh.

Amos was a little taken aback by this bluntness after so many lies and evasions.

‘Why do you say that?’ he asked a little too eagerly. ‘Did he hang around the school gate? Did he talk to the girls as they left school?’

Evans laughed again, this time with a genuine laugh rather than for effect.

‘Oh, no. He kept well away from the school. He wasn’t stupid.’

‘So how did you know him?’

Evans settled in her chair, ready for a long session. ‘It all began in Wainfleet,’ she said deliberately. ‘At the chip shop.’

She enjoyed the puzzled look on Amos’s face.

‘Pat Smith and I and a couple of mates – all girls,’ she added hastily, correctly anticipating the question as Amos made to speak, ‘were out getting bladdered. That’s drunk to you. Well, it was Friday night and we were glad to get out of the dreadful school uniforms – green, for god’s sake. I’ll never wear that colour again. Pat was a bit tipsy. Yes, I know we were under age but the landlord wasn’t too bothered. We all looked 18 and he didn’t ask. Landlords didn’t then. The police round here hadn’t started winding them up,’ Evans added in a slightly accusing tone. ‘I’m sure you have better things to do.’

If only, thought Amos. Underage drinking had been one of the Chief Constable’s betes noirs, a short lived but intense phase as all his passing fancies were. If he found out about this he would be off on another rampage.

‘Please go on.’

‘Well, we wandered about for a bit o fresh air, mainly so Grace could sober up a bit. She was a year older than us and had passed her driving test first time on account of all the practice she had driving round her dad’s farm. Randall was coming out of the chip shop – you know, the one where they still use coal to heat the fat. It makes the chips taste better.’

Amos didn’t know about the coal-fired chip shop and didn’t greatly care. ‘Please stick to the story,’ he said as one whose patience was starting to be tried.

Evans was visibly amused at the sidetrack, which gave the real point of her unfolding story greater impact. She leaned forward so far that Amos thought her breasts would pop out of the top. He half hoped that they would despite his prurient nature. Evans uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other way before continuing slowly and deliberately.

‘Pat had this disgusting T shirt on. It had a picture of a large cockerel on the front and words suggesting the best way to be woken up in a morning.’

Evans rolled her tongue round her lips and looked deliberately at Amos. She made no attempt to conceal her amusement just as Amos was unable to conceal his discomfort.

‘Do you want to know the exact words? – if I can remember them,’ Evans asked coyly. She pretended to think hard but it was obvious that she knew precisely what the offending slogan said.

‘There’s no need,’ Swift interposed. ‘We get the general idea. We can fill in the blanks for ourselves.’

Evans was not to be deprived of her shock tactics, though.

‘Well, that dirty old man looked straight at Pat’s breasts, reading the words out loud. Not that she minded.’ Evans added hastily. ‘She stood there quite brazen. He read out the words twice then he looked her straight in the face and said that was how he was woken every morning and he wished someone would put it down. Pat offered to do the job on Monday but it would have to be in the afternoon as she was still at school. Randall was a bit alarmed. He asked if she was too young but Pat said not to worry she was old enough to cope. Even so, Randall insisted on knowing how old she was. As we soon found out, he always did. He wouldn’t even look at a girl who was under 16. Anyway, he said he couldn’t wait that long as the lack of sleep was driving him crazy. He walked across to a car park just off the road on the opposite side. We tried to stop Pat following him – we didn’t know Randall then and it was dangerous to go off with a stranger who was obviously randy. Our mums told us not to go off with strangers,’ Evans added in a matter of fact way that sounded comical in the circumstances. Pat wasn’t listening. She bounced across the road – and in that T shirt I mean bounced – and got in the front passenger seat. We just stood there open mouthed at her audacity as they drove down to the market square, turned round and tootled off up the road with Pat waving out through the open window.

‘Well, we’d cleared our heads a bit so the three of us went back to the pub. Besides, we wanted to tell a couple of others from school who were there in a separate car. Pat rang me next morning. I was a bit relieved, what with her going off like that with a strange man who obviously only wanted one thing. Not that Pat was a virgin. She’d started at 14 before anyone else in our class but at least that was with a boy she knew.’

‘Was she all right?’ Amos asked anxiously.

‘Course she was,’ Evans responded with a tone of derision. ‘Pat could look after herself. She just wanted to warn me that if her mother asked I was to say that she had stayed the night at our house. She sounded very chirpy. She had put it about a bit, usually with boys from other towns so word wouldn’t get back to her parents. Her dad was a Methodist. This time it was a bit close to home. It turned out that Randall lived here on the south side of Lincoln but he used to live near Skegness, which is why he knew the chip shop. He’d been back for a funeral of someone he knew in Croft.’

Having started out on the beat in Skegness, Amos was familiar with Croft, a village on the A52 heading towards Wainfleet.

‘Pat said she’d had a fantastic night. Randall might have been old but he knew what to do, she said. Quality rather than quantity. Anyway, she was ringing from home and I could hear someone opening their front door so she couldn’t say any more. We agreed to meet up that afternoon so she could fill me in on the details. We met in the park where we could talk without anyone overhearing. Randall had suggested a threesome and Pat wanted me to come along on the Tuesday. She said I could just watch if I wasn’t sure. Well, you see Pat knew I wasn’t keen on sex. I’d only done it once with John Reynolds and he didn’t have much idea. It was really painful. I didn’t want to go through that again. But Pat kept banging on about it so I agreed. I nearly chickened out but I’m so glad I didn’t. Old man Randall was everything Pat had cracked him up to be. We went up to his bedroom and he certainly knew how to undress a girl. Pat’s clothes were off in a trice and she was squealing in ecstasy before you knew it. I was amazed. Randall had shot his bolt but he pulled me onto the bed, put his hand up my skirt and into my knickers.  I had an orgasm within seconds. Pat was right. He certainly knew what to do. We went back on the Wednesday and this time I went first and did it properly. He saw to Pat half an hour later, then we had to go home or our parents would be wondering where we were.’

‘Next day at school Emma Green heard us talking about it so we persuaded her to come. She’d got a steady boyfriend and was getting her share but we told her how exciting it was so she decided to give it a go. She wasn’t disappointed. Evans was in full flow. No longer was she pausing to see whether Amos was shocked or embarrassed. This was the joy of the storyteller bringing an adventure to life for an audience and Evans was as good at telling the tale as she had apparently been acting her role in the sordid saga. We had a bit of a damp squib with Sarah Daley. She was the first virgin to take part. We didn’t really want her to go as we knew she was likely to spoil everything but she lived just down the road from me and she threatened to tell my parents if we didn’t count her in.’ We managed to keep the fun secret from her for best part of a month but then Emma told her one lunchtime and we were left with no choice. I don’t think she quite believed what Emma told her and wanted to find out for herself. She wanted to know all about sex after her mother told her what happened in bed but she was a bit scared of it. I couldn’t imagine her letting a boy see her naked. Well, I was right. We had a right performance, I can tell you. Randall was all for sending her packing but he picked up interest when we told him she was still a virgin. He said he’d never had a virgin in his life and there was a first time for everything. He said his wife had been married before and he’d never had young girls even after she died.