Good Girls Don't Die (12 page)

‘I bet he’s our man,’ crowed Lance as they joined Keith in his office. ‘Has to be! He admits Polly was on his boat. Why else have we found absolutely no trace of her?’ His excitement made Grace hope that perhaps he had forgotten their earlier antagonism.

‘It’s possible,’ said Keith. ‘But right now it’s stalemate. He can’t alibi himself, and we can’t prove he’s actually done anything.’

‘How are forensics doing on the boat?’ asked Duncan.

‘Nothing yet, but it’s early days. He admits he took it out last weekend, so find out if anyone saw him. Did he depart from any usual habits last weekend? Anyone notice anything different? Get house-to-house down to the moorings and begin asking questions. If we get started today, we’ll pick up the some of the same people who were there last Saturday.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘We need to focus on putting Zawodny in town on Friday night and again on Wednesday night. Or catching him in
a lie about where he says he was. So nail down his precise movements.’

‘He deliberately left a lot of big gaps that he knows will be hard to corroborate,’ said Grace.

‘So find something to crack him open,’ Keith ordered. ‘His truck’s distinctive, and there are one hundred and seventy-five cameras in this town. Unless he’s clever, lucky or was never there, he must have been caught on CCTV somewhere along the line.’

‘We want footage that shows Polly in the passenger seat!’ said Lance.

‘Even by narrowing the time frame, it’s going to take us days to trawl through it all, boss,’ said Duncan. ‘Especially since we’ve had to deploy manpower back to the switchboards. Since the
Courier
’s reward stunt, we’ve been fielding a massive torrent of calls.’

‘Fuck!’ Keith smacked the desk with the palm of his hand, making Grace jump. ‘Tell me the calls are at least giving us something useful.’

‘It’s going to take a while to sift through and follow up.’

‘We’ll have two dozen false sightings of Polly just when I have to tell her parents it’s possible we may never recover a body!’ said Keith.

No one said anything for a moment, and then Duncan spoke in comforting tones. ‘We’ve also had plenty of offers from both uniform and civvies to come in and work over the weekend, boss,’ he told the superintendent. ‘They know the clock’s ticking. Everyone wants to help see this job done.’

Keith nodded his appreciation.

‘Plus we’ve had two more women with unhappy stories about Matt Beeston,’ said Duncan. ‘Plenty for the CPS to take a look at on the other charges.’

‘Good.’

‘Pawel’s boat, boss,’ hazarded Grace. ‘If he did use it to dispose of Polly, then why not use it to get rid of Rachel, too?’

‘Some killers get pissed off when they don’t get attention,’ said Lance eagerly. ‘Some even go back to move the body, like the Yorkshire Ripper did with one of his. That would tie in with the way Rachel was staged, too.’

‘So he’s refining?’ asked Grace, not entirely convinced but wary of challenging Lance too openly. ‘Progressing?’

‘Don’t get carried away,’ Keith warned. ‘He may just not have fancied his chances on transporting a second body without being seen.’

‘Might it be worth asking around the working girls?’ asked Duncan. ‘See if they’re familiar with Zawodny? Might help build up a profile.’

‘Good idea.’

‘What about putting feelers out with them for any punters who like playing with bottles?’ asked Lance, with a glance at Duncan, who had not yet been told the full story behind the bottle of Fire’n’Ice.

Keith sat back in his chair, considering. ‘See what you get first,’ he told Duncan. ‘I’d rather keep all that under wraps a bit longer. Something only matey and we know.’

Duncan nodded, his curiosity kept well under wraps.

‘I had an idea about the bottle,’ Grace began tentatively.

‘Let’s hear it.’

‘Well, we’ve assumed it was a weapon. That the girls were easy prey because they were falling-down drunk. But what if it was
because
they were drunk that he preyed on them? Not
while
they were drunk. That would make the vodka more significant than the bottle.’

‘I don’t get your point.’

‘They weren’t good girls. He was punishing them.’

Lance shook his head vehemently. ‘The bottle was a
coup de grâce.
A signature.’

Duncan nodded, and Grace could see that Keith’s thoughts were already elsewhere, searching for hard evidence, not theories. She could hardly blame him.

‘Might be worth speaking to more of Pawel’s past tenants,’ she said, deciding there was nothing to be gained from clashing with Lance over his interpretation of the crime scene. ‘And to Polly and Rachel’s housemates. Build up a more detailed picture of what he’s like around them. It’s clear that he expects respect and appreciation, but how far does he go? After all, he bought Amber perfume. He was concerned about Polly.’

‘If you believe him,’ said Lance.

‘We know what Matt’s like. If Polly was too hung-over to fight him off, Pawel may well have heard her cry out.’

‘So why didn’t she holler for help when he came upstairs?’

‘Ashamed?’ Grace suggested.

‘Enough,’ said Keith irritably. ‘I want evidence, not speculation.’

‘Well, what about the man Polly asked for a lift?’ Lance asked stubbornly. ‘That could have been Pawel. We could show Matt an album? See if he can pick Pawel out?’

‘Yes, but that was Thursday,’ Duncan pointed out. ‘Besides, whoever it was refused to take her.’

‘But it shows Polly would’ve been happy to go off with him on her own the following night,’ Lance argued.

‘OK, enough,’ repeated Keith, clearly annoyed. ‘Say we assume that Zawodny
did
give Polly a lift, then where’s the murder scene? Is it his boat? Somewhere else? For all we know, she was alive when she went in the water. Why don’t we just stick to trying to establish a few facts?’

Grace thought again of Danny Tooley, wondered if he might remember ever seeing Pawel with Polly – or anyone else. But it was clear that Keith didn’t need to be offered any more supposition right now. Maybe later she could slip off and speak to Danny without first running it by the SIO. Maybe not tell Lance, either: she didn’t want to risk alienating him any more than she had to.

On the deserted campus, Grace was pleased to notice that several
Missing
posters with a smiling photo of Polly had been put up at the entrances to shops and departmental offices, and that yellow ribbons had been tied to pillars and lamp posts. The raised concrete walkway was eerily quiet at the end of a Saturday afternoon and she was almost surprised to find the bookshop open. Here, too, there was both a poster in the window and ribbons tied to the handles of the glass door. Inside, Danny sat alone on a stool behind the till, his nose in a book. He looked up when she entered and, recognising her, slid it aside and got up to meet her.

‘You’ve arrested Dr Beeston,’ he said, emerging from behind the counter.

‘You saw it in the papers?’

‘Yes. Roxanne Carson came to ask what I could tell her about him.’

‘And did you tell her anything?’

Danny gave a tiny shrug. ‘Not really. You asked me not to, didn’t you? I just said he always seemed to be hanging
around, when most of the teaching staff try to avoid spending much time with the students.’

‘Did you hear any gossip about him? Hear any of his students talk about him?’ she asked.

‘He likes chatting up the women, though I never saw him with the same girl twice.’

Grace laughed. ‘You notice quite a bit!’

He smiled. ‘Part of the job, to watch people. You’d be amazed how many of them try to steal books.’

‘I guess.’

‘They’re not very good at it, though. They’re pretty easy to spot.’

Grace laughed, liking his dry delivery, and was glad, for his sake, that he wasn’t as naive as he sometimes appeared. ‘Did you ever see Dr Beeston with either Polly Sinclair or Rachel Moston?’ she asked.

‘I never really knew the other one. Will he go to prison?’

‘He’s not been charged with any offence, but we’re still asking him questions.’

Danny nodded, and Grace couldn’t quite decipher his reaction. Was he disappointed? If Matt came in here, she doubted he’d have shown much courtesy to a shop assistant, so perhaps Danny might enjoy watching him get some kind of comeuppance.

‘Were any of the girls he chatted up unhappy about it, do you think?’ she asked. ‘Anyone ever come in here upset or crying? Anything like that?’

Danny shook his head, apparently uninterested now.

‘What else did Roxanne Carson ask you about?’

‘Just chatting. I like her. She’s OK.’

Grace had to agree: Roxanne had been a kind and sympathetic friend last night, and this morning’s woozy hangover had been a worthwhile price to pay for her welcome new feeling of release.

‘She was interested in which books sell the most,’ Danny continued. ‘Said she might come back and do a feature on what students are reading.’ He gave her a wry look. ‘She won’t, though, will she?’

‘No.’ Grace laughed but, all the same, doubted that Roxanne would have wasted time schmoozing him unless she expected to get
some
kind of story out of it. Maybe she should use the same tactic. ‘Out of interest, what did Polly like to read?’ she asked. ‘Do you remember? It really helps to build up a complete picture. You never know what might lead to us finding her.’

‘That’s what Roxanne said.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘I put up the poster for her.’

‘Yes, I saw,’ said Grace. ‘That’s great, thanks.’

‘Polly likes foreign fiction. She was doing Spanish. We talked about which South American writers she liked.’

Grace smiled encouragingly. ‘You mentioned she left her phone here once.’

‘Yes.’

‘Thing is, we can’t trace any signal on it. Is she the kind of person who often loses her phone, do you think? Or forgets to charge it?’

Danny smiled back. ‘She can be a bit scatty sometimes.’

‘Scatty enough to have gone off somewhere and not told anyone?’

He frowned, considering the question, then nodded. ‘Maybe.’

‘In what other ways was she scatty?’

Danny smiled fondly. ‘I ran into her once in Wivenhoe when she’d missed the bus and was late for an important lecture. She gets on at the bus stop before my road,’ he added, as if Grace might require an explanation.

‘Don’t suppose you know her landlord, Pawel Zawodny?’ she asked casually. She turned to select a birthday card from a rack near the counter. ‘I’ll take this while I’m here,’ she added. ‘For one of my nephews.’ Danny took it from her and keyed in the purchase as she busied herself with finding and handing over the correct change. ‘He owns several student properties in Wivenhoe. Has a boat on the river, too. You might’ve seen him about.’

But Danny shook his head. ‘No, don’t think so. Do you want a bag?’

‘Yes, thanks. So you wouldn’t recognise him if you’d seen Polly out and about with him?’

‘No.’ He put the receipt in the bag and handed it to her.

‘You said the other day that Polly popped in for a chat on the morning of the day she disappeared. That was the Friday.’

Danny began to shift nervously but said nothing.

‘I don’t mean to upset you,’ she said reassuringly. ‘The two of you were obviously friendly. I don’t want to pry into your relationship, but I guess you liked her?’

‘We always chatted when she came in. She was nice. We’re friends.’

Grace was struck by how everyone constantly mixed up their tenses when speaking of Polly, unsure whether to think of her as alive or dead. ‘Would you mind telling me what you talked about that Friday morning?’

Danny hung his head. ‘I’d seen her in town with Dr Beeston the night before.’

‘On the Thursday?’ she asked. He nodded, and Grace began to see what had made Roxanne seek him out him again: although the newspapers knew that Matt taught Rachel, so far they hadn’t discovered any direct link between Matt and Polly. Had Danny now supplied Roxanne with it by telling her he’d seen them together in town?

And then it suddenly struck her that Polly wouldn’t necessarily have known that Danny couldn’t drive: why hadn’t she thought of that before! ‘Did Polly ask you for a lift?’ she asked.

‘I don’t have a driving licence,’ he said quickly.

‘No, but she might’ve asked you anyway. Did she?’

He looked perturbed, then nodded. Shit! thought Grace. There goes Lance’s hope of tying Pawel tighter into the mix.

‘I didn’t want her to go home with him,’ Danny said regretfully, making Grace recall what Matt had said about Polly mouthing off at the man she spoke to. ‘She didn’t know what he’s like.’

Grace thought how Matt Beeston must have seen Danny a hundred times around campus over the past couple of years but had recalled merely that the man Polly approached
had seemed familiar. ‘I imagine she’d had a bit to drink?’ Grace asked.

Danny nodded. ‘She came in here the next day. She was a bit upset. I don’t think he’d been very nice to her. I told her not to worry, that he was an idiot and she hadn’t done anything wrong.’

‘How upset was she?’

‘I think I managed to cheer her up a bit. She was OK after we chatted.’

‘But you didn’t see her again after that?’

Danny shook his head regretfully. ‘No.’

‘And she wasn’t planning to see Matt Beeston again?’

He shrugged. ‘Doubt it.’

‘So what were you up to in town?’ she asked lightly. ‘When Polly asked you for a lift. Do you drink at the Blue Bar?’

‘Can’t afford it. I’d met up with a couple of my brother’s mates. Paras,’ he added proudly.

‘Your brother’s in the military?’

Danny nodded. ‘Out at Camp Bastion.’

‘In Helmand?’

‘Yes. Not many of them left there now.’

‘Good for him.’

‘Do you think Dr Beeston killed that other one?’ he asked fiercely.

‘Rachel Moston?’

‘Yes. Will he go to prison?’

Grace shook her head firmly. ‘I can’t say. This inquiry is still in its early stages.’

He seemed to accept her evasion. ‘He deserves it.’

Grace could hardly say that she was tempted to agree with him, though for different offences. ‘Well, if anything else occurs to you, or you hear anyone talking about him, or learn any information we ought to have, you will let us know, won’t you?’

‘Sure.’

‘And you can’t remember seeing Polly in town with anyone else on any other night?’

‘No, sorry.’ The tension in Danny’s face had melted away and he gave her the sweet smile she’d seen once before.

Grace’s heart went out to the vulnerable young man and his lonely passions, making her all the more sure that he knew more about Polly than he cared to say. ‘If you do think of anything, you obviously know about the reward for information, don’t you? Fifty thousand pounds. It’s a lot of money.’

She knew she was taking a risk: if police appeared to endorse a reward, witnesses who came forward as a result could be challenged in court as having only come forward for the money. Yet she had to try every route to encourage Danny to give up what he knew, especially if it meant he’d have to be disloyal to Polly by painting her in an unflattering light as drunkenly offensive.

But he shook his head vehemently. ‘We were friends. She came in here specially the next day,’ he said. ‘She wanted to apologise because she was afraid she’d been rude to me. She’s a lovely person. You mustn’t think badly of her.’

‘We want to find her just as much as you do,’ Grace assured him. He gave her the twisted smile of someone trying not to cry, and she hoped – as much for his sake as for the investigation – that he hadn’t described all of this too vividly to Roxanne.