Blood Money (26 page)

‘And the story was baby Jessica?’

‘In the first instance.’

‘I trust you’ve got the Klinnemanns’ permission.’

‘Oh yes. Initially Miss O’Brien was going to take part, though she changed her mind about that, but she has given us her blessing. We’ve also spoken to your boss about the police viewpoint.’

‘Have you really?’ Mariner couldn’t imagine Davina Sharp wanting to get involved, but he resisted asking what the reaction had been.

‘Mrs Barratt at the nursery declined to contribute, and that was why we approached Christie.’

‘You said “in the first instance”,’ Mariner said.

‘We were planning a follow-up, too. Christie offered to help us with an undercover exposé of what really goes on in the day-care sector.’ The two women exchanged a glance, but not so fleeting that Mariner didn’t notice.

‘But?’ he prompted.

‘At first we weren’t really all that interested, because it’s already been done. But then Christie called me back to say that she had a story we definitely would be interested in.’

‘About what?’

‘That’s what we were here to find out. All she would tell me on the phone was that it was “a cracking good story”. Unfortunately, at the time we spoke, my diary was full. The first time I had a window was today. Christie was going to tell me then.’

‘How much pressure were you putting her under?’

‘None at all. We were in preliminary negotiations, that was all. But she seemed very keen.’

‘Had you discussed fees?’

‘Only in general terms. Christie did seem pathetically excited by the initial fee and it did cross my mind that this “other story” might be her attempt to squeeze more money out of it. People do have a tendency to get greedy in this situation. And it seemed like a last-ditch thing. She left a message on my mobile late on Saturday night of all times.’

‘Do you remember exactly what time?’

She thought for a moment. ‘Let me see, we were at Gill and Bill’s. Must’ve been around eleven thirty. There was a lot of noise in the background, as if she was in a club or bar or something, and her speech was slurred, as if she’d been drinking. Celebrating in advance perhaps.’

‘But you hadn’t paid her anything at that stage?’

‘No. It was way too soon for that. You can’t pitch a project until you know what it’s about, and even then it doesn’t necessarily get the green light.’

‘Did Mrs Barratt know about any of this?’

‘Given her attitude towards me, I can’t imagine that Christie would have told her,’ said Marcella Turner. ‘We weren’t made to feel terribly welcome. I mean the whole kidnapping thing didn’t exactly do the nursery any favours, did it? It wouldn’t have gone down very well.’

‘And there’s no way she can have found out about what Christie was planning?’

‘Not from our side.’ Jez couldn’t resist. ‘How
did
she—?’

‘Her body was found on the railway track, below a footbridge. ’

‘My God. She threw herself under a train?’

Mariner took the official line. ‘It’s how it looks.’

‘God.’ It was said slowly and pensively and Mariner could almost hear the cogs turning as she weighed up whether this in itself might be enough of a story. ‘Do you think any of the other girls would be up for it?’ Jez asked. She was staring into the middle distance and the question could have been directed at anyone.

‘I think it’s time you went,’ Mariner said.

Jez smiled artfully. ‘Your boss wasn’t interested, but if you felt like giving us an interview, Inspector, on or off the record—’

‘Just go,’ said Mariner.

Back in Christie’s room Knox was continuing to work his way systematically through her things. He’d gathered together a small collection of evidence bags, containing anything he thought may be significant, but still had uncovered no handbag, purse or mobile phone.

‘We’ll take what we’ve got with us,’ said Mariner. As he went to pull the door closed behind them, he noticed pinned to the back a month-to-view calendar with a photograph of some cute-looking puppies and space below to record any engagements.

‘Border terriers,’ said Knox, recognising smaller versions of Nelson.

But Mariner was staring at the single entry made on the previous Tuesday, which said simply
4.00pm clinic
.‘What sort of clinic?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Could be anything,’ said Knox, helpfully.

‘She’d have been at work on Tuesday.’ Mariner took out his phone and called Jack and the Beanstalk. He asked to speak to Joy. ‘Christie had an appointment last Tuesday afternoon,’ he said, when she finally came on.

‘Oh yes, I remember, she left work early.’

‘Do you know what it was for?’

‘It was a doctor’s appointment I think.’

‘She told you she was seeing a doctor?’

‘I don’t remember if she actually said that. She may have just told me it was an appointment and I assumed—’

‘Thank you.’ Mariner ended the call. ‘That’s not what she wrote though,’ he said to Knox. He was thinking about the calendar at home in Anna’s kitchen. ‘If it’s a doctor’s appointment, that’s what you write - “doctor”. If it’s a dentist’s appointment she’d have written “dentist”. Either Joy made an assumption or Christie told her that, to cover up what it really was. What other clinics are there?’

‘All sorts. Family planning?’

‘But Christie had just finished with Jimmy Bond, so it wouldn’t seem a particularly appropriate time for that. We’ll ask her nan on our way out. Have we got everything?’

Even taking the processor of Christie’s computer it didn’t amount to much. On their way out of the house Mariner managed to breach Phyllis Gates’ security for long enough to question her about the appointment but, like Joy, she knew nothing about it. She was, however, able to give them details of Christie’s GP.

In the car Mariner reported back to Knox on his conversation with the two unwelcome visitors. ‘Never mind that a girl has just died,’ said Mariner in disgust. ‘All they’re interested in is a story.’

The health centre where Christie’s GP was based held a waiting room full of people, many of whom were curious yet not impressed when Mariner flashed his warrant card and got almost immediate access to Dr Samirayah. Mariner didn’t sidetrack the doctor for long. As far as Dr Samirayah was concerned Christie had no health problems, nor any need to attend a clinic. He had made no referrals for her in the recent past. In fact, she hadn’t been to the doctor in months.

‘The only prescription I wrote in recent years was for the contraceptive pill, but she hasn’t renewed for about eight months.’

Mariner escaped just a few minutes later past the disgruntled glares of the waiting patients.

Back at Granville Lane there was a pile of phone messages requiring Mariner’s response. He returned Louise Byrne’s call straight away.

‘Kenneth McCrae has been committed to Rampton secure psychiatric unit indefinitely. He won’t have much fun there.’

‘No, he won’t,’ said Mariner. It wasn’t a prison sentence but they both knew it was the next best thing. ‘Thanks for everything you did.’

‘My pleasure, Tom. There was something else. McCrae’s written you a letter of apology and expressing remorse for what he’s done. I need your permission to forward it.’

Mariner’s gut lurched. ‘Sure, why not?’

 

Next up Mariner got back to Stuart Croghan. ‘You’ve got some results on the paint flecks?’

‘No. Something else I thought might be of interest though. The baby remains from the Lickeys. When we ran tests on them the DNA pattern looked familiar. I checked back over recent cases and found a match.’

‘You can identify the baby?’

‘We’re a step nearer. Its mother was the woman you found in the sewer last Christmas.’

‘Madeleine. Christ, you’re sure?’

‘As sure as I can be.’

That was a turn up. ‘We knew at the time that she’d recently given birth.’

‘And now you’ve found her baby, although sadly, it still doesn’t tell you who she was.’

Mariner took the news over to where Charlie Glover was ploughing through the paperwork on his desk. ‘This gives us a new lead,’ Glover said, eagerly, coming to life. ‘The baby had a cleft palate. Somebody would surely remember that?’

‘But we don’t know if she had the baby here or in Albania,’ Mariner reminded him. ‘If she had him over there we haven’t any idea of the extent of the medical care available. It wouldn’t necessarily be recorded anywhere, so you’d be relying on someone to remember it, and where the hell would we start with that?’

Glover was crestfallen. ‘It might be worth checking round local health centres and hospitals here though,’ he said. ‘It’s possible she had the baby here.’

‘That will depend on whether she was here legally,’ Mariner pointed out.

‘How old was the baby?’ Glover asked.

‘Around four to six weeks according to Croghan, and was killed at about the same time as Madeleine, so you’re looking at him being born sometime in October or November of last year.’

‘What I don’t understand is if Madeleine and her baby were killed at the same time, why not dispose of them both in the same way and put them both down the sewer?’ queried Glover. ‘Why go to the trouble of burying the baby in a different spot?’

‘Perhaps whoever did it was squeamish about doing that with a baby.’

‘Can I follow this up, boss?’ Glover was already starting to stack papers, tidying his desk to leave it for a while. ‘I could do a house to house in the row opposite the woodland, too. Someone may have seen whoever it was dumping the baby’s body.’

Mariner hated to dampen his enthusiasm. ‘Nine or ten months ago? It’s asking a lot for anyone to remember that far back. And I can’t imagine it happened in broad daylight either.’

‘I know but—’ Glover was a man with a mission.

‘All right then. It won’t do any harm I suppose.’

 

Croghan had given Mariner the number for the paint lab, and the technician there had come up with a positive result. Mariner couldn’t think what would possess anyone to spend all day examining bits of paint under a microscope, but he was bloody grateful that someone did.

‘The flecks of paint found in Christie Walker’s clothing are without a doubt from a car, not a train,’ said the someone at the end of the phone. ‘I’ve compared it with the manufacturer’s database and it’s a DuPont Cayman green, a paint used on Ford Escorts up at Halewood from the early 1990s.’

‘That’s a long time span.’

‘The last car rolled off the production line up there in July 2000, so you’re looking for a car more than six years old. That should narrow it down for you. Also the top layer of paint was more loosely bound on some of the samples, so you’re looking for a car that’s had a partial re-spray.’

‘But basically we’re looking for a green, six-year-old Ford Escort.’

‘That’s about it.’

‘Thanks.’ It was a starting point. At last something tangible to look for.

Mariner contacted the DVLA for a list of Ford Escorts registered in the Birmingham area, though it was only going to help them if the driver believed in tax and insurance, and there were plenty who didn’t. And the CCTV cameras in the car park of the Golden Cross were no help at all as they were out of commission.

‘It would help if we could pinpoint exactly where Christie was struck,’ Mariner said to Tony Knox. ‘To have killed her it must have been quite an impact. There must have been damage to the car so there must be some evidence of it. At least if we could establish what route she might have taken—’

‘And how do you propose we do that?’

‘By looking for anything connected with Christie.’

‘Like?’ The penny dropped and Knox screwed up his face in distaste. ‘You mean by looking for the vomit.’

‘It’s all we’ve got.’

Assembling a small team, they began working outwards from the pub, but in a short time it became clear that it was going to take a long time. Even aiming for the direction that Christie would have taken to get to Jimmy Bond’s house, they were very quickly presented with numerous alternative routes and each pavement was dappled with possible stains. The enormity of the task was just hitting home when Mariner’s mobile rang. It was CID. ‘We’ve had a call from a man who’s seen Christie’s shoe.’

‘Seen it?’ It seemed an odd way of phrasing it.

‘So he says, and it’s kind of in the area you’re looking at, between the Golden Cross and Jimmy Bond’s house. I said you’d go and talk to him.’

Knox and Mariner went immediately to Grange Road where Andrew Sawyer lived. Bordering on the university campus and once the home of manufacturing industries, in recent years the old factories had been torn down and student halls of residence erected in their place. Sawyer, it transpired, was a mature student, an academic, renting a flat in the university post-graduate accommodation. Even though his face said early thirties, he dressed like a middle-aged man in dark trousers, collar and tie, with a sleeveless pullover on top. Nor was his flat anything like any student accommodation Mariner had ever been into before, everything tidy and spotlessly clean. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I was just making one,’ Sawyer offered.

It was hours since they’d had a drink and Mariner’s throat was parched. ‘Thanks.’

Knox declined. Sawyer disappeared into the kitchen.

As they’d driven up, the street outside had been deserted, Sawyer seemingly the only resident in the block, a point that Mariner remarked on now.

‘Yes, most of the other students aren’t back yet after the summer break,’ Sawyer explained. ‘Give it a couple of weeks and it’ll be a different place.’

‘You must feel quite isolated here,’ Mariner called after him.

‘Not really, I like the peace. I’m working on my doctorate, ’ came the disembodied voice in reply. ‘It demands a high level of concentration.’