Flesh And Blood (15 page)

‘No.’

‘Shane, listen. The sooner you do that, the better it will be. Then we can sort out exactly what happened and I can try to help you explain. But you have to hand yourself over to the police. You have to. There isn’t any choice.’

Neither of them had heard the approaching footsteps until they were almost at the car, the ACO calling Pam’s name as he bent towards the window, hand outstretched to tap upon the glass. Even as Donald’s right hand was opening the offside door, his left was reaching across the seat to snatch her bag. Moments later he was scrambling over the low wall and out of sight, the ACO shouting at shadows and Pam leaning forward, head against the windscreen, hands gripped fast around the wheel.

♦

The ACO accompanied Pam to the police station and remained with her, solicitous, while she made her statement. Despite her assurances that she was all right, no more than a little shaken up, the police doctor had examined her, applied antiseptic cream and an Elastoplast to the back of her neck and suggested she take a couple of Nurofen. Pam had been to the cash point that lunch-time, which meant there had been not far short of a hundred pounds in her purse, alongside the usual selection of plastic. She could cancel the credit cards, of course, would do as soon as she got to a phone. An hour, perhaps a little more since arriving at the station, she was sitting with a cup of tea and a cigarette when tears started to run, soundlessly, down her face and she began to shake. The ACO patted her gently on the top of her shoulder but, careful in these matters, abstained from holding her hand.

Newly appointed, the police superintendent was eager for his officers to get to grips with something other than Friday night drunk and disorderlies, taking and driving away, street-corner dealing and the usual spate of unresolvable domestics. Having a convicted murderer unlawfully at large and quite possibly still on your patch was one thing, him coming after his probation officer with a knife was another. Robbery and grievous bodily harm. Catch the little bastard and sling him back inside and he’d be in incontinence pads and fighting off Alzheimer’s before he got the right side of the Parole Board again.

All of the extra activity that ensued was not lost on the local crime reporter, who promptly pulled in a few favours, not least from the detective sergeant with whom he regularly shared a jar after hours, and then arranged for a photographer to snatch a couple of candid shots of Pam as she left the station, still looking a little dazed. The reporter was a stringer for one of the nationals, which, along with several of its rivals, had been keeping half an eye on the local furore about Donald’s release, waiting to see if it blossomed or faded on the vine. And now the news editor, mindful of circulation wars and the doctrine of market share, sent hacks scurrying through the files, ferreting out as many tasty details of the original crime and resultant trial as would play well in the current climate. All right, sixteen-year-olds didn’t jerk the paedophile cord as strongly as when the victims were barely adolescent, but there was enough of it there in the shadows to add a little bite to the Why Release These Monsters angle. Several ounces of sexual prurience whipped up with a pint or so of righteous indignation and you’d tapped in to the heart of middle England.

So, he bellowed across the news room, get your sorry arses up there, Huddersfield, get a story out of that probation officer and, unless she’s a complete dog, lots of pictures; while you’re there, check out the hostel, see what you can worm out of the other inmates. Oh, and our stringer reckons this lad who’s bolted’s got family up that way, a sister, something like that. Let’s get our hands on her before somebody else does. Then there’s this Padmore who’s been shooting his mouth off all over the local Notts. press, the one whose girl was raped and murdered. Let’s see what we can do to freshen that up a little, give it a new angle. Last up, this Donald, what about the bloke who arrested him? How does he feel seeing his work go to waste? And what sort of a depraved bastard did he reckon Donald for anyway? Okay, what are you still standing there for? Let’s move it.

A traffic accident had closed the motorway north, an articulated lorry slipping its load and causing a twenty-three-car pile-up and blocking all three lanes; the tailback was already at fourteen miles and counting. Diversions had been posted. Elder settled for the back lanes that sent him scuttling through Langley Mill and Codnor, the twisting camber of the road testimony to the disused mine shafts that burrowed higgledy-piggledy below ground. Due north then through Alfreton and Clay Cross till, close to Wingerworth, he could see Chesterfield’s famous crooked spire leaning above the rooftops.

He had arranged to meet Paul Latham in the old market square – medium height, medium build, medium sort of bloke really, flower in the buttonhole, that ought to do it, not a great call for that sort of thing in Chesterfield, always excepting funerals, that is. In the event, Elder picked him out easily, sitting on one of the corporation benches, head in a book: rose-pink carnation, unfashionably long hair curling up against the collar of his pale corduroy suit, a soft leather shoulder-bag close by.

‘Mr Latham?’

‘Paul.’

‘Paul, then. Frank. Frank Elder.’

Latham’s grip was firm and quick.

‘It’s good of you to make the time.’

Latham smiled. ‘Either this or some benighted version of macaroni cheese. Mounds of chips.’

‘What do you suggest?’

‘No shortage of pubs. Though not while you’re on duty, I dare say.’

Elder shook his head. ‘I’ve not been that for years.’

‘I thought…’

‘Sorry, perhaps I should have made myself more clear. I retired from the force a while back. This is just… well, personal, I suppose.’

‘I see.’

Elder wondered if it were his imagination, or had Latham looked relieved on learning the visit was unofficial?

‘A pub would be fine,’ Elder said.

They found a corner where they could talk, Elder giving in to the thought of food and ordering a Melton Mowbray pie to accompany his half of bitter, Latham settling for a fruit juice and some KP nuts.

‘Drama, then, that’s what you teach?’

‘That and a bit of English. Media studies too, I have to teach that now.’

‘Looking at advertising, newspapers, stuff like that?’

Latham laughed. ‘Mostly watching old episodes of
EastEnders
, then justifying it with some sociological waffle.’

He was still quite boyish when he laughed, Elder thought, good-looking in an arty kind of way. Difficult to pin down his age, but not as young as first impressions suggested. Somewhere close to forty-five. Which would have made him thirty when Susan Blacklock disappeared, possibly a year or so younger.

‘You remember Susan?’ Elder asked.

‘Of course.’ Latham’s face took on a serious bent. ‘A lovely girl. Special.’

‘In what way?’

‘Ah. Where to start? She had a good brain, for one. She was able to understand things with more maturity than most. Relationships, for instance.’

‘Relationships?’

‘Between characters.’

‘You mean in drama, plays?’

‘She could get beneath the text, between the lines.’

‘And this made her special?’

‘For someone her age, yes, I think so. Especially when you consider her background.’

Elder looked at him sharply. ‘I don’t think I understand.’

‘Usually, when you come across something like that, scratch the surface and you’ll find dad’s a writer, mum’s some leading light in rep at least. But in Susan’s case, well, if you’ve ever met her parents you’ll know what I mean. Perfectly nice people but I doubt if they’ve got an original idea between them, and if there’s a book in the house that isn’t Catherine Cookson or Tom Clancy, I’d be surprised.’ Latham tipped another palmful of nuts into his hand. ‘Nothing amiss with that, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the kind of background to foster creative thought and understanding.’

Elder could feel Latham getting under his skin. ‘How do you account for it, then, this skill, if that’s the word, that Susan had? Was it some kind of intuition or what?’

‘Something she was born with?’ Latham chewed thoughtfully. ‘I think that’s true as far as it goes. It was a gift. Some kind of throw-back, possibly. But that wouldn’t account for everything. No, she was alert, eager to learn, immersed herself in whatever we were doing, worked damned hard. It was as though…’ Fingertips pressed together, for a moment Latham’s eyes closed tight. ‘It was as though she didn’t want to be where she was and drama – acting, theatre – that was a way of releasing her, taking her somewhere else.’

‘Where exactly?’

Latham smiled. ‘Who knows?’

Elder persevered. ‘She was different to the others then, her friends? What were some of their names? Siobhan. Lynsey.’

‘It’s a matter of degree. Seriousness. It was all more of a game for them. Not that they were devoid of talent, mind. Siobhan even went on to drama school, fashioned some kind of a career.’ He lifted his glass. ‘She turns up in
The Bill
every once in a while, usually playing some tart.’

‘And is that what Susan wanted, do you think, to be an actress?’

‘An actor? No, I don’t think so.’

Elder used his knife to augment a slice of pork pie with mustard. ‘Susan, you never heard anything from her after that summer? A postcard, the odd phone call, anything like that?’

‘No, not a thing. If I had, I’d have informed her parents, the police.’

‘Of course.’ Elder chewed, then swallowed down some beer. ‘And Siobhan? Lynsey?’

‘Yes. They’ve been pretty good about keeping in touch, both of them. Christmas cards, you know. A note from Siobhan if she was in something, bit of radio, a telly.’

‘You’ve got addresses for them, then?’

Latham gave it some thought. ‘Lynsey, I’m not so sure. But Siobhan, yes, I think so. Somewhere in London. But how up to date it is, I’d hesitate to say. They lead a bit of a nomadic life, you know, actors.’

‘You wouldn’t mind letting me have it, all the same?’

Latham hesitated, uncertain.

‘I can always track them down some other way,’ Elder said. ‘This would make it easier, that’s all.’

‘Very well.’ Latham scrambled in his bag and came up with a bulging Filofax; five or six addresses beneath Siobhan Banham’s name had been crossed out and replaced. ‘Here you are – London, NW1.’

Latham uncapped a ball-point, pulled a sheet of blue paper free from the back of his organiser and wrote the address down in a neat, slightly curlicued hand.

Elder thanked him and slid the address down into his top pocket.

Latham looked at his watch. ‘I really did ought to be getting back. First lesson, Tuesday afternoon. Third-year drama. If I’m not there on time they’ll have dismantled the hall.’

Outside, Elder offered his hand. ‘The boys in the group, was Susan interested in any of them?’

Something passed across Latham’s face, impossible to define. ‘Interested?’

‘You know, girlfriend, boyfriend. Attraction. Friendship. Sex.’

‘Not as far as I was aware.’

‘And you would have known, I mean, had it been anything serious.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘But you must have seen quite a lot of them out of school, theatre trips and so on. If there’d been something going on…’

‘I might have noticed, I suppose. But no, no, I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t help you there.’

Elder held his gaze.

‘I’m wondering why you ask?’ Latham said.

‘Oh, nothing special. Curiosity, I suppose. Trying to fill in a few gaps.’

‘I see. Well, as I say, I must…’

‘Third-year drama, you must get back.’

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks again for your time.’

Elder watched him move briskly away, sidestepping the lunch-time dawdlers and window-shoppers, women with pushchairs, young men grazing on take-away burgers and battered chicken, small children who would neither be bullied nor cajoled. He was thinking of what Latham had said about Susan Blacklock wanting to be released, taken somewhere else. Wasn’t that what all children, all young people, wanted at some stage of their lives, teenagers especially? All those day-dreams: fantasies in which we are foundlings, the parents we have grown up with not our real parents at all.

He was almost at the edge of the square, heading back to where he had parked the car, before the newspaper headlines caught his eye.
KILLER AT LARGE
.
PROBATION OFFICER HELD AT KNIFEPOINT
. He rummaged in his pockets for some change. High on the right of the page was a photograph of Shane Donald as he had been in 1989, and, blurred beneath the fold, a picture of himself leaving the court after the guilty verdict on Donald and McKeirnan had been returned.

♦

Maureen excused herself from her colleagues when she saw Elder enter the bar.

‘You’ve seen this?’ he asked, slapping the newspaper with the back of his free hand.

Maureen nodded. ‘They didn’t even catch your best side.’

He bought her another half, a Jameson’s and a chaser for himself, and they managed to find themselves a spot where they didn’t have to shout above the electronic cackle of games machines or the sports channel on the overhead TV.

‘You know what sticks in my craw?’ Elder said. ‘The way they come on all holier than thou, as though they’re doing some kind of public service. Making the likes of Shane Donald into a media celebrity.’

‘And driving him further underground into the bargain.’

Elder nodded. ‘To say nothing of dredging up all the details of what happened and splashing them all over the inside pages.’

‘Sells papers.’

‘Without a doubt. I wonder what it does to the victims’ families?’

‘According to the
Post
, Lucy Padmore’s father’s angry enough already; this’ll just about send him ballistic.’