Blood Money (22 page)

‘What suicide?’ he asked.

It was PC Mick Crawford who’d mentioned it. ‘Transport Police reported it first thing this morning. They found the body of an unidentified young woman on the railway line between Kingsmead and Bournville stations over the weekend, a probable suicide. Bit gruesome so they said.’

‘A young woman?’ Knox echoed, his stomach bubbling a little. ‘Where exactly?’

‘Back of Cottesbrook Park.’ So, miles away from the Golden Cross, Knox thought, with relief.

‘It looks straightforward so we’re leaving it to them,’ Crawford said. It was standard procedure for the Transport Police to handle any deaths on the railways. The only exceptions being when the death happened to be connected with an ongoing police investigation. Knox hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those exceptions. ‘They wanted to know if we’d had any mispers reported over the weekend, but we’ve got none that fit their profile.’

‘You’ve got a description?’

‘Sure.’

‘Can I see?’

Knox followed Crawford back to his desk. He didn’t know why he was compelled to look at the description, and afterwards he half-wished he hadn’t. An involuntary groan escaped his lips. The girl had a fading bruise running the length of her face.

‘You all right?’ Crawford asked.

Back at his desk, a phone call determined the exact location of the body and Knox grabbed his coat. As he crossed the office he almost collided with DCI Sharp. ‘Where are you off to in such a rush?’

‘Transport Police have found a body on the railway track.’

‘It’s a suicide. It’s not one for us,’ Sharp said.

‘I think it could be Christie Walker, the girl who gave us the description of baby Jessica’s abductor.’

‘How the hell did you come up with that?’

‘She called me on Saturday morning and wanted to meet with me. I, er, couldn’t make it at the time she wanted and I haven’t been able to get hold of her since. Her boyfriend used to knock her about.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean—’

‘I know. I just want to be certain, ma’am.’

‘All right then, follow it through, but unless it’s definitely her, you leave it to BTP.’

‘Yes, ma’am. It’s just for my own peace of mind.’

‘Well, I admire your thoroughness, DS Knox.’

 

Could Christie have been that desperate? Knox had assumed when she called that she’d wanted practical help, the name of a hostel or women’s refuge, but what if she’d got beyond that? He wished now that he’d saved her message so that he could listen to it again.

The body had been found at a point along the main Bristol to Birmingham railway line below a footbridge that lay at the entrance to Cottesbrook Park, an area of tamed green lawns mixed with rough woodland. Though wide enough to take a vehicle, the bridge was blocked off at one end by three concrete bollards, making it a footway leading into the park. It came at the right-angled junction of two roads of terraced houses, the nearest of which was thirty metres away. The railway bridge from which the young woman had jumped was now jammed with emergency vehicles, the small group of onlookers illuminated by flickering blue strobes.

Identifying himself, Knox was allowed access through a gate in the steel perimeter fencing that would normally be kept locked. He waded through brambles and nettles before slithering down the muddy, grass-covered embankment on to the clinker, and stepped across the sleepers towards the white tent that had been constructed just the other side of the line. Just being on the track, with the smell of the railway, prompted a gruesome rush of memories from twenty years ago. Adam Teale’s tiny mutilated form had been found on a railway track.

The Transport Police investigation team had begun its work. Approaching the nearest officer Knox was directed on to the man leading the investigation, Andy Olsen. He introduced himself.

‘And how can I help you, DC Knox?’ Olsen asked.

‘I think I might know the victim. Can I take a look?’

‘Be my guest.’

With some reluctance, Knox pulled back the flimsy flap that afforded some privacy from the inquisitive world. Some deaths are unreal, neat and clean, leaving the victim’s body almost unscathed, but Christie Walker’s death had been the opposite. Her limbs were angled at grotesque and improbable positions, her flesh on one side of her face torn open and bloodied. After a moment, Knox became aware that someone was speaking to him.

‘Is it her?’ Olsen was asking.

Knox nodded, dully, his gut turned to lead. ‘Her name is Christie Walker,’ he said.

‘I’ve heard that name before,’ Olsen said, trying to figure it out.

‘She was a key witness during the baby abduction case. She worked at the nursery that Jessica was taken from.’

‘Of course.’

‘She was also the girl who gave us the most detailed description of the abductor.’

‘You never did find the abductor, did you?’ commented Olsen. ‘Do you think someone might have wanted her out of the way?’

‘She was in an abusive relationship. And the guy who was beating her up was the same guy who made the hoax ransom demand. He’s been charged with PCJ.’

‘And probably thinks she grassed him up. She wouldn’t be the first person to take this way out. Either way it looks as if this is one for you after all. I’ll let you have everything we’ve got so far.’

‘Thanks. Who found her?’

‘One of our goods drivers. He managed to stop in time, but they’ve taken him to Selly Oak to be treated for shock.’

‘So if he stopped in time how come she’s in such a bad way?’

‘She must have been hit by an earlier train. The high speed one during the night may not have even noticed. If he did feel it, the driver would have thought he’d hit a fox or something. There’s not much blood in the area where she was found so she could have been dragged a little way. Hard to tell which side of the bridge she jumped off.’

‘There’s no ID on her?’ Knox was thinking particularly of Christie’s phone.

Olsen shook his head. It wasn’t unusual. Suicides often didn’t want to be identified. Olsen nodded down towards her feet. ‘She’s lost one of her shoes, too. Our guys are out there looking, but as far as I know, they haven’t found it yet. It’s possible it could have been carried some distance by the train that hit her of course.’

 

The train driver who’d made the discovery was in Accident and Emergency in a curtained cubicle waiting to be attended to. In late middle age, his complexion had a greyish pallor.

‘I was coming out of Kingsmead station, just building up a bit of speed when I saw her,’ he told Knox, the image clearly still very much on his mind. ‘Whenever you see something big and bulky like that up ahead you always think, and hope—You hear stories all the time. I could see what it was when I was about twenty yards away so I had time to stop. She was just to the side of the track, sort of half on half off, if you know what I mean. She must have been hit by an earlier train, but I managed to stop before I ran over her. I got out and had a look.’ He gulped hard and Knox cast around for a receptacle in case he was about to throw up. ‘God, I wish I hadn’t though—’

‘It was the right thing to do,’ Knox said. ‘Thanks.’ As he got up to go the driver gripped his arm so hard it was painful. ‘Do you think I’ll ever forget it?’ he wanted to know.

‘It’ll fade in time,’ Knox told him, reminding himself of the same thing.

 

By the time Knox got to the mortuary, Stuart Croghan was beginning his preliminary examination. Knox scrubbed up, put on greens and lurked in the background. He hated this aspect of the job. It was one of those things you never got used to. For a while the only sounds were the clink of surgical instruments and Croghan’s commentary murmured into the Dictaphone as he and his assistant, a medical student, worked. In the end Knox couldn’t bear the tension any longer. ‘Has Bond knocked her about recently, in the last couple of days?’ he wanted to know, the uncertainty eating into him.

‘Not in the last day,’ said Croghan. ‘She’s been dead more than twenty-four hours. It looks as if she died sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning. There must have been other trains that drove past without seeing her. And she’s a mess, so it may be impossible to tell whether she’d recently been subjected to a beating. As well as the broken neck that I’m assuming caused her death, there are a whole range of impact injuries from the fall and from being struck by the train.’

Knox had fallen silent.

‘Are you all right?’ Croghan sounded curious. It wasn’t as if Knox hadn’t been through all this before.

‘She rang me on Saturday night and I was supposed to meet her. I think she was going to turn him in, or maybe she just needed help to find somewhere safe she could go. I had other arrangements so I put her off.’

Croghan picked up his tone of voice. ‘Not your fault, Tony,’ he said, lightly. ‘If she wanted to do it she’d have done it anyway. You think she killed herself because you stood her up? There were other reasons.’

‘I’ll never know now though, will I? Cause of death?’

‘I need to do more work, but at first glance broken neck and impact injuries, multiple fractures, would be enough to do the job. But you’re right, there are other, older injuries.’

‘Like I said, she’d been subjected to physical abuse over time.’ Knox clenched and unclenched his fists. Before he left, Knox asked: ‘Would she have known anything about it?’

‘I doubt it. The break in her neck is clean and the initial impact of it would have knocked her unconscious straightaway. She wouldn’t have felt anything.’

It was small comfort. Knox still left the mortuary feeling sick. It was a horrible way to choose to die, and now he would have to live with the thought that he might have prevented it. A couple of weeks ago he’d offered Christie a way out, a lifeline. But then when the time had come he’d snatched it away from her, and all for the sake of a shag.

By the time Knox had driven to the garage that Jimmy Bond owned, the guilt had been displaced by anger and his blood was up. He pulled on to the forecourt, tyres protesting at the abrupt halt.

‘Where’s Bond?’ Bursting on to the forecourt, Knox yelled at an overall-clad youth training a jet-wash on the row of cars. He gestured towards the glass-fronted showroom. Shoving open the swing door, Knox picked out Bond immediately; smooth and oily today in his designer suit, doing the hard-sell on a secondhand Ford Focus to a middle-aged couple. He was bigger than Knox, but the sergeant was stronger and angrier, and Bond barely had time to glance round before he’d been grabbed by the shoulders, spun round and slammed against the wall, an elbow across his throat.

‘What was it this time?’ Knox breathed menacingly, his face inches from Bond’s. ‘Didn’t cook your steak the way you like it? Or did you get it into your stupid skull that she shopped you? You wouldn’t know loyalty if it jumped up and bit you on the arse, would you? You might think you’ve got away with this, you bastard, but I know the history and one way or another I’ll trace it back to you.’

For several seconds Bond was afraid, but there was something else in his eyes; he was perplexed, too. ‘What’s going on?’ he managed.

‘We’ve found Christie’s body,’ said Knox. ‘That’s what’s going on.’

Bond went slack and the colour drained from his face. ‘What?’

Caught off guard by the reaction, Knox released his grip and Bond slid down against the wall. The middle-aged car-buyers had backed away and were making a discreet exit through the swing doors.

‘Bit of a stunner, eh, Jimmy?’ Knox went on, gasping for breath. ‘See what you did to her.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Christie and me broke up.’

‘When?’

‘Couple of weeks ago.’

‘Who ended it?’

‘She did. She did a runner while I was being held by you lot. That’s how loyal she was. Before you interfered, I’d proposed to her. I wanted us to get married, have a family and that before we both got past it.’

‘She was going to marry you?’

‘She turned me down.’

‘I can’t imagine why,’ said Knox, his voice dripping sarcasm. ‘Upset you, did it? Thought she’d always be there for you, your own personal punchbag.’

Bond didn’t deny it. ‘She might have said yes if—’ ‘—if you’d extorted two hundred and fifty grand out of Peter Klinnemann? She’d have put up with you knocking her around for the sake of the money, would she? You’re kidding yourself. Christie had too much commonsense and too much integrity to waste her life on a loser like you. She didn’t grass you up, you know, she didn’t have to. We already had you.’

‘I know that.’

Bond was defiant, but Knox could see that it was bravado. He was shaken. Maybe he really had loved Christie. ‘What were you doing on Saturday night?’ Knox demanded.

‘I was in Blackpool, getting pissed.’

‘Why?’

‘It was my mate’s stag night.’ Bond’s expression suddenly changed. ‘This is your fault,’ he said, turning on Knox. ‘You did this.’

‘How do you work that out?’ Knox said uneasily.

‘If it hadn’t been for you giving her ideas, Christie would still be with me. She needed me.’

‘Like a hole in the fucking head. That’s crap and you know it. You might not have pushed her off that bridge but one way or another you were responsible. I’ll be back for you.’

‘You don’t know what you’re on about. If it wasn’t for you she’d still be alive.’

And those were the words that rang in Tony Knox’s ears as he walked back across the forecourt.

 

Last time Mariner had been in Granville Lane it had been a night of celebration, with everyone, including him, in high spirits. Today it couldn’t have felt more different, and when he walked in CID was practically deserted, everyone out catching up on the backlog of cases that had been put on hold for the duration of baby Jessica’s abduction.