Darkness, Darkness (14 page)

‘Four days before Christmas.’ Mary shook her head. ‘That song, you know, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”? On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me. For me, it’s a little different. On the fourth day of Christmas my mother disappeared from the face of God’s earth.’

Hands to her face, she lowered her head towards the ground.

Catherine could tell she was crying; rested a comforting hand on her shoulder; left it there, slowly moved it away. Gradually, the crying stopped.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘No? No, I suppose not. It’s not possible, is it, any other way?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘Would you rather go somewhere?’ Catherine looked back towards Central Avenue. ‘A cup of coffee?’

‘No. No, thanks. I’d sooner stay out here. No one to see me if I start blubbing.’

Catherine’s mobile started to ring and she slipped it from her pocket, checked the caller ID and declined the call.

‘Go ahead and take it if you want,’ Mary said.

‘Not important.’

‘They’re a curse, aren’t they? Mobile phones. Blessing and a curse. Out where we live there isn’t any signal, of course. You have to drive the best part of a mile, get out on to this little hill and wave it around in the air.’

Catherine was reaching for her bag. ‘D’you mind if I have a cigarette?’

‘Not at all. I was a fearful smoker till Kevin was born. Even when I was carrying him, you know, I’d still have the odd one or two. His dad reckons it’s why Kevin’s such a bag of bones. Not a bit of flesh on him.’

‘And you? You think that’s why it is?’

‘Not at all. He won’t eat a decent meal, that’s what it comes down to. Pushes his food around the plate and scarcely eats a thing. Fussy doesn’t come into it. His sister scoffs down twice what he does and she’s not but a slip of a thing herself. Maybe it’s in the whatever . . . the genes . . . that’s what it is.’

Catherine held the smoke down in her lungs, releasing it slowly into the air. A crocodile of small children was making its way along the path towards the library entrance, all, save the last few, holding hands.

‘Sweet, aren’t they?’ Mary said.

Catherine nodded.

‘You’ve not children of your own?’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘No, not really.’ Mary’s face creased into a smile. ‘Well, maybe just a little. Smart, professional. Dedicated, I dare say, to your job.’

Catherine’s turn to smile. ‘You left out strident, sexless, feminist, probably gay.’

‘I didn’t think you were that.’

‘Which?’

‘Gay.’

‘People do. Even now. They assume. Career police officer, female. Lesbian, got to be.’

A mischievous smile came to Mary’s face. ‘I catch myself wishing sometimes I could’ve been a bit more that way inclined. Save an awful lot of trouble, wouldn’t it now? Men, for one thing. Babies, breastfeeding, nappies.’

‘Not so much the babies. Gay friends I know, they spend more time and energy trying to get pregnant than anything.’

‘Instead of the old quick shag, you mean?’

Catherine laughed. ‘Most cases, likely not an option.’

‘Not even with their eyes closed.’

Catherine laughed again.

‘I don’t know why I’m talking like this,’ Mary said. ‘Must still be the effect of the wine.’

A woman shuffled past leading a small dog, its stomach almost brushing the ground.

‘You know I have to ask you,’ Catherine said. ‘When Jenny – when your mother – disappeared, what did you think had happened?’

‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly.’

‘I thought my father – I know I shouldn’t say this, shouldn’t even think it – but I thought, you know, that he’d . . . I don’t know how to say it . . .’

‘That he’d killed her?’

‘Oh, Lord, no, not that. That somehow he’d driven her away.’

‘You don’t mean literally, literally driven . . .’

‘No, of course not. I mean forced her, I suppose, forced her to go.’

‘Can you explain?’

‘It was tense, you know? Towards the end. Those last few months. At least, that’s how it seemed. How I remember it now. Long periods of silence, nobody speaking, and then, once in a while, this awful shouting. The house suddenly full of shouting. And anger. He’d get so angry then, my dad. They both would. And it would get to the point where one of them would break something, just a cup or something, smash it, you know, on the table, throw it on the floor, and then one of them, my mum usually, would go slamming out the door.

‘That’s right, he’d say, shouting after her, go on, get out and don’t come back. And he’d swear and I’d start crying and that would only make things worse. Brian and me – he was the youngest – we’d both be crying.’

‘Not Colin?’

‘Colin always took my dad’s side against my mother. If ever there was an argument and we were there and afterwards she tried to say it would be okay, tried to say she was sorry, he just wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t let her touch him or anything. Told her he hated her, more than the once. You don’t mean that, Colin, she’d say. You don’t mean that. But I think he did.’

Catherine stubbed out her cigarette. Angled above the trees, the sun was just beginning to leak through the grey.

‘So you thought,’ she said, ‘that your dad had told her to go and not come back once too often?’

‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so.’

‘But you thought she would come back eventually?’

‘Yes. Of course. I always, always thought that. Or that there’d be a letter, a phone call, something.’

She was crying again, not bothering to hide it this time, and when Catherine reached out for her hand she pulled it away.

‘It’s all right, I’m all right, I’m . . .’ She pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose, brushed the tears from her cheeks.

‘I’m sorry to put you through this,’ Catherine said, ‘but there’s just one more thing.’

‘Go on.’

‘When you thought your mum had taken your father at his word and gone, did you ever think she might have gone with somebody else?’

‘Another man, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Later, maybe. When, you know, I was older. But at the time, no, I don’t think I ever did.’

‘And when you thought, later on like you said, that perhaps it was a possibility, was there anyone in particular you thought it might have been?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘That wasn’t one of the things they argued about?’

‘Mum seeing someone else? No. It was always the strike, the Welfare, the soup kitchen, all the time she was spending with all of that. Time he thought she should have been spending at home. With him. With us. Your kids, he’d say, my dad, your so-and-so kids, it’s a wonder they still know who you so-and-so are.’

‘And did you feel that? That your mum was perhaps ignoring you?’

Mary hesitated before answering. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose I did.’

Catherine walked with her to the edge of the park; brighter now – the sun had really broken through.

‘What time’s your flight?’ Catherine asked.

‘Not till this afternoon.’

‘You’ll be glad to be home.’

‘Yes, I will. But you’ll keep in touch? If you find out what . . . what happened, you’ll let me know?’

‘You and the rest of the family, as soon as ever we have something definite, yes, of course.’

‘Thank you.’

Mary forced a smile and Catherine found herself wanting to reach out and give her a parting hug but instead kept her hands by her sides.

‘Just one more thing,’ she said. ‘Your friend, Nicky, if you could let me have an address? It’s just possible we might want to talk to her – fill in some background, someone else who knew the family back then . . .’

‘Why not?’ Mary said. ‘I’m sure Nicky wouldn’t mind. And, after all, it can’t do any harm.’

ALL PAUL BRYANT
wanted to talk about, at first anyway, was the VW T25 camper van he’d picked up second-hand. ‘Good as new, Charlie, no more than fifteen thousand miles on the clock. And a real beauty.’

Patient, Resnick allowed himself to be led through a litany of features that seemed to run from professionally lowered suspension and Porsche Fuchs aluminum wheels to an extra-long hook-up cable for campsite use and a twin gas hob and grill.

It had been late afternoon, shading into evening, when Resnick had arrived at the bungalow where Paul Bryant and his wife, Barbara, lived, some five miles outside Sheffield, not far from Hathersage and the Dark Peak. The van was parked ceremoniously out front, dwarfing the flower beds to either side.

‘All you have to do, Charlie,’ Barbara Bryant said, ‘nod your head every so often and throw in the occasional grunt of appreciation. Sooner or later he’ll wind down and you can talk about normal stuff like football or the price of a pint.’

One of the few police marriages Resnick knew that had survived; that it had was due in no small measure to Barbara’s straight talking, sense of humour and innate good sense. A youngish PC when she and Paul had met, once she had realised things were going to become serious between them, she had left the force and retrained as a nurse. Just two months ago, she had retired from her post as senior sister in the neonatal unit at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield. Resnick had met her no more than half a dozen times over the years and on each occasion found her more impressive than before.

‘Not so long now, Charlie,’ Paul Bryant said, settling into an armchair, ‘and we’re off down to Spain. Break the journey going down through France, bit of time in the Camargue, and then it’s the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.’

Across the room, Barbara raised an eyebrow and kept her own counsel.

‘What about you, Charlie?’ Bryant asked. ‘Got to kick it all into touch one day. What then?’

Resnick gestured with open hands. Who knows?

‘Charlie,’ Barbara said, sitting forward, ‘what happened to Lynn, I’ve not seen you since then. I’m really sorry. It must have been awful, an awful thing.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And hard to move on.’

‘Yes.’

‘But we do. And you’ll stay to supper, Charlie. Lamb. I can’t imagine you’ve gone vegetarian. If Paul can prise himself up out of that chair, there’s beer in the kitchen. Or tea, if you’d rather.’

He opted for beer. Oldershaw Great Expectations from Lincolnshire.

‘Not entirely a social call,’ Bryant said. ‘That’s what you said when you rang.’

Resnick nodded. ‘Donna Crowder, eighty-seven. You were what, number two in that investigation?’

‘Yes. Rawsthorne, the late lamented, was SIO.’

Succinctly as he could, Resnick filled him in on the details of Jenny Hardwick’s murder; told him about Trevor Fleetwood and his assumptions, linking the two crimes together.

Bryant listened with interest, belatedly snapped the cap from his bottle of beer. ‘Michael Swann, there’s nothing to suggest – other than what Fleetwood says – that he might have been responsible?’

Resnick shook his head. ‘Not so far.’

‘Swann’s victims, as I remember, they were all sexually assaulted prior to being killed?’

‘Yes.’

‘All attacked in the same way?

‘With escalating severity, yes.’

‘Whereas in Donna Crowder’s case there were no signs of sexual assault at all.’

‘To which Fleetwood would doubtless say he was building up to it, becoming bolder, more excited, less in control.’

Bryant shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Charlie, it looks a pretty cockamamie theory to me.’

‘Maybe. But he’s been digging around this for a long time. Done his research, or so it seems.’

‘Found what suits him.’

‘Which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.’

Bryant poured his beer, taking care to tilt the glass.

‘You believe him, then?’

‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

‘You wouldn’t have come all the way out here . . .’

‘Hadn’t seen you and Barbara in too long.’

‘Bollocks!’

‘Okay, Fleetwood’s idea, I don’t swallow it whole, no. But the way I see it, I’ve got to be interested. That, at least. Twenty-nine years – it’s one hell of a long time and we’re in danger of getting stuck.’

‘Just as we were, back then.’

‘Worse now. Too many people dead or moved away, difficult to find. Your investigation must have been up and running within days . . .’

‘Didn’t help us any.’

‘You’ll have had an idea, though, a serious suspect or two. We don’t have that, not even close.’

‘Oh, yes . . .’ Bryant tasted his beer, made an appreciative face. ‘For a good while, we thought it was the boyfriend. Seemed to be right in the frame. Early twenties, local, even had a little form – nothing major, but form just the same. Wayne, Wayne Cameron. Bit of a cowboy sort of name.’

‘Wayne Fontana,’ Barbara called from the kitchen.

‘What about him?’

‘Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders,’ she said from the doorway. ‘I bet that’s who he was named after. Sixties, for a lad, if it wasn’t John, Paul or George it was some other pop group you got called after. Mind you, not a lot of Ringos. And, come to think of it, Fontana might have been later. “Game of Love”? Unless your Wayne’s a bit older than you thought.’

‘You know what?’ Bryant said. ‘Either way, I don’t think it matters.’

‘You mean, I should . . .?’ She pointed back towards the kitchen.

Bryant laughed. ‘I think that’d be a good idea, don’t you?’

‘Let you two get on. Men’s talk.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Okay, then.’ An indulgent smile and she was gone.

‘Bungalows, Charlie,’ Bryant said. ‘Not big on privacy. She’ll be clocking every word we say.’

Resnick laughed. ‘What’s it going to be like in the van?’

Bryant rolled his eyes.

‘Anyway,’ Resnick said, ‘this Wayne . . .’

‘Yes, right. Him and Donna, they’d a humdinger of a row that evening, witnesses galore. He’d gone round to her place, early on, expecting her to go out with him, and there she was, dolled up to the nines, off into Sheffield with her mates. Right to-do. Effing and blinding. Would have clipped her one if others hadn’t interfered. Walk out that door an’ you’ll live to fuckin’ regret it. His very words. Course, poor lass, she never did.’

He paused, lifted his glass.