Echoes of the Past (13 page)

“I
start work in about fifteen min.”

“It
won’t take long; I’ll walk you up the drive.” He replied with a charming smile.

“I’m
looking into a couple of cold cases, Miss Jenkins. Some missing persons going back a number of years. Now I understand you were engaged to P.C David South.”

Tessa
felt a pang at the mention of his name. She didn’t think about him anymore. It was too painful.

“Yes.”
Her answer was a little more abrupt than she had intended.

“Did he ever discuss any of his cases with you?”

“He
didn’t have any cases, as you put it. There is barely any crime in Coppersfield. What, do you think we spoke about tractor thefts and lost dogs?”

Tom
smiled again. They were reaching the bend in the drive way and he could now see the house looming ahead. “No, Ms Jenkins. This would be a cold case, one that was probably unrelated to Coppersfield.”

Tessa
stopped walking and turned to him. “You mean the Susanna Wheeling case.” It was a statement not a question.

“Can
you tell me anything about it?”

Tessa
turned and begun to walk faster up the driveway. “No. We didn’t talk about the job. We were busy planning our wedding.”

“Ms
Jenkins. This could be really important. If you know anything you must tell me.”

The
wind snapped her hair like a whip across her face. The sky had become darker as an onslaught of grey storm clouds rolled in. As she reached the main door of the house, they entered the porch for some shelter from the bitter cold.

“I
don’t know what to tell you.”

“Well,
you can confirm that he was looking into the case.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why he didn’t put anything on her file?”

“No,
I’m sorry.”

“He
seemed to be investigating under the radar, do you know why?”

Tessa
turned to look at him and paused for a moment to think about her answer.

“David
thought he knew what had happened to her,” she said. “He had linked it to another woman that had gone missing a year before Susanna Wheeling.”

Tom
frowned for a second. “You mean after Susanna don’t you.”

“No.
Almost a year to the day before Susanna he said.”

“Do
you remember her name?”

“He
didn’t tell me. I have to go.” Tessa opened the main door and entered the house.

“Wait,
Ms Jenkins, you didn’t say what David thought had happened to her.”

“He
believed she had been killed by a man she met at her work. He believed that man came from Coppersfield. I don’t want to talk about this any more, I really have to go.” Her voice had become no more than a whisper. Tom felt a chill in his spine. He knew there was a connection but he didn’t think the killer was in Coppersfield. With a population of around seven hundred, if P.C David South were to be believed, it would mean that he himself had probably met the killer at some point.

Tom
began to mentally run through the people he had met through this case, John Caulder, his son Peter. Jim Watt. Patrick Goyl. And he was intending to meet with Samantha Caulder at some point, maybe she would know something about the people in Angela’s life at the time of her disappearance. There was one other person that Tom hadn’t spoken to yet. Doctor Styles, he had been around the village forever. He would probably know a thing or two about the local residents. Tom knew if the killings had started in 1968, he would be looking for someone at least in their late sixties but most probably older. That is, if the same person is responsible for all four disappearances. Something deep in Toms gut told him they were all connected.

The
weather was turning nasty as Tom climbed in to his jeep, but in spite of it, he decided to head down to Glasgow to interview Samantha Caulder. He called Danny to verify her address; it would be interesting to see what she had to share about the old days.

*****

As Tom drove into Glasgow, the weather had improved dramatically. The storm clouds had stayed in Helensburgh and the temperature had gone up by three degrees. He pulled into a petrol station and picked up a coffee to tide him over until teatime. He drove another ten miles before he reached the housing estate that Samantha Caulder lived in.

Row
upon row of flats around four stories high, sat in the midst of a concrete jungle. A small veranda on each house appeared to be the only outdoor living space they had, each veranda fuller than the other with everything from washing to old bicycle parts. The view from each was simply more flats. Tom had the feeling that, no matter what memories she had, Coppersfield must be a more therapeutic place to stay for a girl with troubles rather than living here.

He
checked the address and felt relieved that she was only on the second floor. He knew there would not be any lifts. The blocks were not high enough for the law to make the council install them.

He
pushed the dark red door open and entered; the close was dark and cold. A strong smell of urine blew in from the back of the close, where there no doubt would be a concrete square for the tenants to use as a drying area. All in all the place had a dismal feel to it. A place where a lot of broken people came, some to heal some to be forgotten.

Tom
was surprised on the second floor when he saw Samantha’s door. Some one had been taking an interest here. The door had a fresh coat of blue paint. The landing had been scrubbed clean, and a white edge had been painted around the concrete floor. He rang the doorbell and a second later, a tall woman answered. She had dark grey hair pulled back in a bun giving her sharp features a severity they did not need.

“I’m
looking for Samantha Caulder.”

The
woman eyed him suspiciously. “Who is?”

“I’m
sorry.” Tom fished his warrant card from his pocket and introduced himself; Samantha looked closely at the I.D before finally opening the door wide enough for Tom to walk in.

Inside
the flat was painted bright colours; she led him down a long narrow hall and in to a bright kitchen.

“Would
you like coffee, I don’t have any sugar though.”

“That’s
fine, black will do nice.”

Samantha
offered him a seat at an old leaf style table.

“I
haven’t done anything wrong, so I don’t see why you’re here.” She defensively pulled her cardigan tightly around her painfully thin body.

“It’s
not anything you’ve done, Samantha, I wanted to ask you some questions about Angela Harrison. Do you remember Angela?”

Samantha
turned and stared out of the kitchen window at the identical flats across the street.

“I
have not come here to upset you, Samantha. I just want to get to know Angela a little better and I thought you were the best person to ask.”

Samantha
let out a long sigh and sat down beside Tom.

“What
do you want to know?”

“I
would like to know what kind of person she was.”

Samantha
didn’t need to think about it, she seemed to be simply waiting for the opportunity to tell someone about her friend, anyone.

“She
was great. She was funny, intelligent. She got on so well with everyone.”

Tom
carefully broached the subject of Patrick, but Samantha didn’t seem to hold any grudges there.

“We
were both very young and stupid. It was for the best, I couldn’t look after a baby. When you are that young, sometimes your emotions get the better of you. Everything seems to overwhelm,” Samantha said.

Tom
asked her about the relationship with Jim Watt. However, Samantha again said the same as he had been told already, they were just really good friends.

“What
do you think happened to Angela?” Tom watched her carefully for any tell, that she may reveal.

“I
think she was killed.”

“When
you say killed, you mean murdered?”

Samantha
nodded. “Angela would never stay away from her parents, or her friends. She wasn’t like that. But no one seemed to want to look for her.” Samantha sighed and pulled her cardigan even tighter around her.

“Who
do you think would hurt Angela?”

“It
would have to have been someone up in Aberdeen. She never came home from there.”

“I
was reading through her diary, Samantha, in one of her last entries she spoke about how much she missed you and that she had tried to get in touch.” Tom hoped it would help her to know that Angela had held no bad feelings toward her before she died. He swallowed the rest of his coffee and thanked Samantha for her time. He didn’t want to stay too long. Samantha was delicate Tom felt; she had never really come back from everything that had happened. John Caulder had been right about that.

“I
know, I met with her the night before she left for Aberdeen,” Samantha said.

Tom
stopped. “You met with Angela Harrison?”

Samantha
nodded. “My Dad wouldn’t let me out, so I had to sneak out of the hotel, I waited till it was really busy and slipped out the back.”

“Where
did you meet her?”

“At
the old church on Church Street, just down from her house.”

“What
did she say? Did anything happen?”

“Yes.”
Samantha smiled. “We made friends. She forgave me for keeping a terrible secret from her, and of course the other thing, and I told her if she loved Patrick then I was fine with it.”

Tom
knew ‘the other thing’ was a veiled reference to the knife. “You know she didn’t continue to see Patrick.”

“Yes,
she told me that night that it was a clean start for her.” Samantha had a look of contentment on her face when she spoke about Angela.

“And
was that all that she said, you can’t think of anything else?”

“There
was one thing, I tried to tell the police at the time, but after everything that had happened they wouldn’t listen to me.”

“I’m
listening, Samantha,” Tom said.

Samantha
sipped her water. “No one believed me, even my Dad sent me away when I started on about it. Her last night in Coppersfield, she said it would be a fresh start for her; she said she couldn’t wait to get away. Not just because of Patrick, but someone else. She never told me who it was or what had happened. She just said that she couldn’t get away from there quickly enough.”

“Did
she say whether it was a man or a woman?”

Samantha
thought. “She didn’t say, but I got the impression she was talking about a man. I don’t know why.”

Tom
prodded a little deeper to see if there was anything else hiding in Samantha’s mind, but eventually he had to give in. He stood to leave.

“You
know, lately I have been dreaming about Angela. I haven’t had a dream about her in years, then all of a sudden, I’m having the nightmares again and then you show up.”

Tom
walked down the hall and opened the front door. He noticed there were at least five different locks and chains on the door. “I am sure it is only a coincidence Samantha. Don’t give it any more thought.”

He
left his card with her in-case she remembered anything else and started down the stairs of the darkened close. As he climbed into his Jeep on the bright street, he began to realize that everything he was hearing just now was pointing back to Coppersfield. He knew that the whole point of moving Jess up there was to get her away from dangers. In the fourteen years, she had lived in Edinburgh she had lost her mother to a tragic and horrific accident; then her best friend was abducted and most probably murdered. Tom was having a hard time wrapping his brain round the possibility that a killer was sitting in the town he had thought of as one of the safest places on earth. The most disturbing thing was the fact that the main village only had a handful of streets, you could be passing his door everyday and not even know it.

*****

It was 8.30pm by the time Tom reached Coppersfield. It was already dark and most places had closed. He could smell the roast chicken as he entered the old house, he sent up a silent thank you to anyone listening for the homeliness that Lee had brought to the house for Jess.

“Hello,
ladies, how are you?” he said as he bent over the couch to give Jess a kiss on the head.

Jess
lifted her foot slightly and wiggled her toes to show her newfound mobility. “Look, Dad, I should be back at school by Monday.”