A Walk With the Dead (22 page)

‘She may have been – but if she wasn't, she'd certainly have been too dazed to put up much of a struggle.'

‘Was there any evidence of sexual assault?'

‘There was some bruising in the vaginal area, but the bruises are at least a few days old.'

An image of her stepfather, lowering himself on to her, flashed across Paniatowski's mind, and then was gone.

‘Do you think that Maggie was raped?' she asked.

‘It's possible,' the doctor conceded, ‘but there aren't any bruises on her thighs or arms, which was what you'd expect with forcible penetration.'

‘So what conclusions do you draw from that?'

‘That while the sex may have been rough, it was probably also consensual. Some girls like it rough – or, at least, they
expect
it to be rough, so they don't complain when it actually is. From her own appearance – and from that of her mother, who came in last night to identify the body, but seemed more interested in talking about compensation – I suspect Maggie may have been one of those girls.'

‘I think you're right,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘For a girl of her age, she wasn't in great shape physically,' Liz Duffy asked. ‘Her diet was poor, her teeth were beginning to rot, and she wasn't getting nearly enough exercise. She was also suffering from gonorrhoea – and had been for several weeks.'

‘Would she have known she had the clap?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Not necessarily. When men catch it, they usually experience pain when urinating within four to six days. In the case of women, there
may be
vaginal discharge, and having intercourse
can
become painful, but fifty per cent of women are totally asymptomatic, and have no idea they're infected.'

A possible scenario flashed through Paniatowski's mind . . . Maggie sleeps with a man, and four to six days later, it starts to hurt when he pees. He realizes what has happened and flies into a rage. When he confronts Maggie in the park . . .

But that would mean there were two killers, and even the cautious Dr Duffy now believed there was only one.

‘Maggie had consumed quite a lot of alcohol in the hours preceding her death,' Liz Duffy continued. ‘My guess would be that it was cheap cider.'

What did the two girls have in common? Paniatowski asked herself.

One of them had had an overprotective mother, the other a mother who didn't give a damn about her.

One had been a virgin, with lesbian tendencies. The other had been heterosexual, and sexually active.

Yet they died not only in almost exactly the same way, but also in almost exactly the same place.

‘I was hoping you might have been able to find something that linked the two victims,' she said.

And then she saw the look of utter dejection that came instantly to the other woman's face, and wished she hadn't spoken at all.

‘What sort of thing did you have in mind?' Liz Duffy asked, in a subdued voice.

‘I don't know,' Paniatowski confessed.

‘Perhaps that they shared the same rare blood group or had both got appendix scars from operations which were clearly performed by the same doctor?'

Paniatowski grinned. ‘Something like that,' she said. ‘Look, you shouldn't take anything I've said to heart,' she continued in a more serious tone. ‘It's no reflection on you. The fact is that I'm so desperate over this case that I was hoping for a miracle – and miracles simply don't happen every day.'

‘Is it really as bad as that?' Liz Duffy asked. ‘Is your boss giving you a hard time?'

‘Not at the moment,' Paniatowski said. ‘He's in Yorkshire, investigating a prison suicide. But when he gets back, the fat will really be in the fire.'

‘Oh God!' Liz gasped. She turned away, and began to pace the room. ‘I didn't realize how much you were depending on me – and I've given you
nothing
!'

‘As I said, I've no right to expect miracles,' Paniatowski said.

But Dr Shastri would have worked miracles, she thought.

If Shastri hadn't had the right
answers
, she would at least have asked the right
questions
, which would have set the team on the path towards finding the right answers for itself.

It wasn't Liz Duffy's fault. She was young and inexperienced, and in time she would no doubt grow into just as fine a police doctor as Dr Shastri. But given that she had two murders on her hands, Paniatowski needed someone as fine as Dr Shastri
now
!

M
eadows was prepared to concede that the traffic was fairly heavy in the centre of Whitebridge that morning, but it still didn't seem quite heavy
enough
to merit either the intensity of concentration or the caution with which DC Crane – who was behind the wheel – was treating it.

‘Do you know, Jack, the way you're driving is so reminiscent of my Great-aunt Matilda that it's almost uncanny,' Meadows said.

Crane signalled to overtake a van, then thought better of it, and dropped back slightly.

‘Yes, good old Aunt Matilda,' Meadows continued. ‘What a character she was! You could always tell when she'd taken the Roller out for a spin because there'd be a tailback of traffic that could stretch for miles.'

Crane said nothing.

‘Still, I suppose that's only to be expected when you're a ninety-one-year-old woman and as blind as a bat,' Meadows ploughed on. ‘Are you ninety-one, Jack?'

‘Sorry?' Crane said.

‘I was just asking you if you'd ever been to Bridlington-on-sea,' Meadows said.

Crane shook his head. ‘No, I haven't.'

‘What's on your mind, young Jack?' Meadows asked.

‘Nothing,' Crane replied.

‘You might as well come clean right away,' Meadows told him, ‘because you know I'm easily smart enough to guess eventually, don't you?'

‘Yes, I do know that,' Crane agreed.

‘Well, then?'

They reached the roundabout at the end of the High Street, and Crane took a left turn.

‘Have you ever been in love, Sarge?' he asked.

‘I was
married
once,' Meadows replied.

And because there was something in her tone which suggested that that particular avenue of conversation was permanently closed, Crane said no more than, ‘Fair enough.'

For a while, as they drove through the industrial wasteland that had once been the beating heart of Whitebridge, they fell silent again.

Then Meadows said, ‘All right, since I was the one who insisted on knowing what you were thinking, I suppose it's only fair that I answer your question honestly. No, Jack, I've never been in love. Why do you ask? Are you?'

‘I'm not sure,' Crane admitted.

‘And how long have you been suffering from this period of uncertainty?' Meadows wondered.

‘About twelve hours.'

‘Ah, then it must be the new police doctor who you think you might have fallen for,' Meadows guessed. ‘Falling in love so quickly was rather impulsive, don't you think?'

‘It's not so much a case of having discovered new feelings as it is of resurrecting ones which I thought were dead and buried,' Crane explained.

‘So she's an old flame, is she?'

‘That's right.'

‘From your university days?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then you'd better tell Aunt Kate all about it, hadn't you?'

‘We were together for a little under a year . . .' Crane began.

‘Can you be a little more precise than that?' Meadows interrupted him.

Crane grinned sheepishly. ‘We were together for three hundred and twenty-seven days,' he said.

‘Ah, so
she
jilted
you
.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘Because you're the one who's kept the score.'

‘You're right, of course,' Crane agreed. ‘She jilted me. And at the time, it was a bit of a relief.'

‘Why was that?'

‘Because I was young and foolish, I suppose. She saw us as a complete pair. She worshipped me . . .'

‘You flatter yourself,' Meadows told him.

‘No, I don't think I do,' Crane continued seriously. ‘I could do no wrong in her eyes, and, to be honest, I was starting to find it a bit stifling.'

‘So perhaps she jilted you because she thought you were about to jilt her,' Meadows suggested.

‘Do you know, I've never considered that possibility,' Crane said thoughtfully, ‘but now you bring it up, it sort of makes sense. Anyway, it wasn't long before I started to miss her more than I'd ever imagined I would, and I was on the point of suggesting we try again when she met Simon.'

‘Who was tall, handsome, and drove a very expensive sports car?' Meadows suggested.

‘Yes, you're right about all those things,' Crane agreed. ‘Anyway, I made the best of a bad job, and started going out with other girls, some of whom were quite stunning.' He paused. ‘And I'm not flattering myself there, either,' he added, as if to nip the expected criticism in the bud.

‘No, I'm sure you're not,' Meadows agreed. ‘You're not my type at all, Jack, you really aren't . . .'

‘There's no need to go on about it,' Crane told her.

‘. . . but even allowing for that, I don't find it particularly hard to believe you can pull beautiful girls just by clicking your fingers.'

‘I've tried to put her out of my thoughts over the years, but now – totally unexpectedly – we've met again,' Crane continued. ‘And Liz isn't attached any more! Simon left her – she told me that last night.'

‘Wouldn't it be a bit dangerous to pick up just where you left off?' Meadows cautioned. ‘Might you not soon start to feel hemmed in again?'

‘I don't think so,' Crane said. ‘I'm older now, and the prospect of getting together with someone who wants to make you the centre of her universe – and who you want to become the centre of yours – doesn't seem anything like as daunting as it once did.'

‘Even so, it's always a mistake to rush into things,' Meadows cautioned. ‘You won't rush into them, will you, Jack?'

‘We're there,' Crane said, sidestepping the question.

They were indeed, Meadows thought, looking through the windscreen and seeing Wood Rise High School looming up in front of them.

The school had cold slate roofs and gables that seemed to gaze down disapprovingly at those below them. It looked more like a Victorian workhouse – which was what it once had been – than a centre of enlightenment, and it was hardly surprising that it was known locally as
Blood Eyes
High School.

‘We're expected, are we?' Meadows asked, as she got out of the car.

‘We are,' Crane confirmed. ‘The headmaster will be waiting for us in his study.'

‘What do you know about him?'

‘Not a great deal. I believe he was a military policeman in the army before he retrained as a teacher.'

Meadows looked at the gaunt, austere building again. ‘He must feel quite at home here, then,' she said.

Baxter was sitting at his desk when he heard an awkward cough, and he looked up to find Chief Officer Jeffries standing in the open doorway.

‘Can I do something for you, Mr Jeffries?' he asked.

‘I've been ordered by the governor to ask you how your interview with Lennie Greene went,' Jeffries said woodenly.

Having been in the prison for a few days, and seen for himself who actually pulled the strings, it was difficult to imagine the governor
ordering
Jeffries to do anything, Baxter thought. So if such an order had, in fact, been issued, it was only because Jeffries
wanted
it issued.

‘Did you hear what I said?' Jeffries asked.

‘Yes, you said you'd been ordered by the governor to ask me how my interview with Lennie Greene went.'

‘And how did it go?'

‘It went fine.'

‘You're not being very cooperative,' Jeffries said.

‘I must have learned that from someone else,' Baxter countered.

‘Look, you must have realized by now that we rely on Greene to keep things in order on the other side of the bars,' Jeffries said.

But did they, Baxter wondered – or did they only
think
they did?

Was there some other prisoner secretly calling the shots – a prisoner who Greene was so afraid of that even though he desperately wanted to study with the Open University, he didn't dare to expose him? Was that what he had meant when he'd said that telling Baxter what he wanted to know would be taking a step too far?

‘Are you listening to me?' Jeffries demanded angrily.

‘I'm listening,' Baxter said.

‘Since you talked to Greene, he's been unusually quiet. He may even have been crying. And as his state of mind has a direct effect on the running of this prison, I demand to know what went on between the two of you.'

‘I'll make a deal with you,' Baxter suggested. ‘You tell me why you felt it necessary to alter the timesheets, and I'll tell you what I said to Greene.'

‘Why I altered the time sheets?' Jeffries repeated. ‘I have no idea what you're talking about.'

Baxter picked up the timesheets that were lying on the desk. ‘These are what you gave me – and they're only photocopies,' he said.

‘That's right,' Jeffries agreed.

‘And not even very good ones. Was that deliberate?'

‘No, it wasn't deliberate,' Jeffries said. ‘The prison service isn't like the police force, you know. We don't get money showered on us every time we hold our hands out.'

‘Oh, for God's sake, do you think you're the only ones working under budgetary constraints?' Baxter said, exasperatedly. ‘Some of my officers are driving around in patrol cars that should have been retired years ago. I'm so understaffed that I'm continually moving men from one important job when it's only half completed because I need them on another important job.'