Grave Doubts (39 page)

‘There’s no point speculating. The results will be through later today.’

‘But…’

MacIntyre, who had been sitting quietly observing them, stood up and put a hand on Fenwick’s arm.

‘Got a minute?’

They went outside.

‘Why are you so concerned about the shirt?’

‘It may not be Ginny’s blood. Supposing someone disturbed him here and he killed them?’

‘I can’t see him knocking off a stray passer-by.’

‘What about Wendy or her dad?’

‘Fred Smith is alive and well, though very unamused. Cave has brought him in for questioning on suspicion of blackmail. We’ll never prove that now but we might just rattle Wendy’s address out of him.’

‘Then who…?’

‘Or what. Leave it, Andrew. Cave has it covered. He has all the resources he needs and we must go. I’m better placed to coordinate a nationwide search in London.’

He went back inside and Fenwick called Quinlan again. When he couldn’t be found he asked for Cooper and was kept waiting for longer than he appreciated. He couldn’t keep the impatience from his voice when the Sergeant eventually picked up the receiver.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting. I was in a briefing and…’

‘Listen, we know who Griffiths’ partner was.’ He explained the basics to Cooper quickly, not giving him a chance to ask questions. ‘The point is that he’ll be after Nightingale next. How has the work gone in tracing her?’

There was an embarrassed silence.

‘Cooper?’ His tone rose in warning.

‘It’s Inspector Blite, sir. The Superintendent gave it to him and he says it’s a low priority, that it’s one of your obsessions.’

‘One
of my obsessions?’

‘I mean…well, the point is I started work on it but I haven’t had a moment to get back to it. There’s been thefts and vandalism up at the golf club and the Mayor’s car was stolen…’

‘We’re talking about a woman’s life here! Put me through to Quinlan. I insist on speaking to him right now.’

‘No! It’ll cause a terrible stink. Leave it with me. I promise I’ll do something today. Blite’s away all morning so I’ll have a chance.’

Fenwick paused. He was so angry that he was burning to have a go about Blite to Superintendent Quinlan but Cooper was right. He was far away, out of mind, and Blite would simply say that the investigation was progressing.

‘Very well. I’ll call again later but for God’s sake, don’t let me down.’

As they drove south, clouds appeared to greet them. The heat turned muggy and he wound the widow down, turning his face to the air like a dog. They stopped after two hours for something to eat. Despite his fifth coffee of the day, Fenwick started to feel groggy as soon as he’d eaten but MacIntyre was wide-awake and curious.

He quizzed Fenwick in detail, asking why he had been so insistent about digging into every aspect of Smith’s past. Why had he visited the old family home? Why had he set Robyn to work on old cases and why those cases? Fenwick found it exhausting. To stop MacIntyre talking he said with more exasperation than he would have liked:

‘Look I don’t
know
why I was keen to find his home, nor why I think his parents are more likely to be dead than to have done a runner. It’s logical, isn’t it, to want to find out everything you can about a suspect? I just go back farther and in deeper, that’s all.’

When they stopped to allow the driver a comfort break, he rounded on MacIntyre, too tired to hide his irritation.

‘I don’t mind scrutiny, curiosity is fine, but I get the sense there’s something about me that makes you uncomfortable. Why don’t you just come out with it. The cross-examination and deep looks are getting on my nerves.’

If he had thought MacIntyre would be angry, he was wrong. The Superintendent just laughed.

‘My, aren’t we a sensitive soul! The truth is that you are a seriously weird detective. No wonder Harper-Brown can’t stand you.’

Fenwick opened his mouth, in protest or in shock that the detail of his relationship with the ACC was common gossip, he wasn’t sure.

‘Don’t get on your high horse. You’ve got to watch that pomposity, Andrew, it’s your least appealing feature. Listen, I’ve worked with all sorts in London and in Scotland before I came down here but you’re like no one I’ve worked with before.

‘You’re logical, irritatingly so, yet on the other hand, you are intuitive. You keep a complex investigative strategy in your head as if it was a game of cards, but you insist on the most detailed investigations of tangential aspects of a case. And Professor Ball described you as a “rare empathetic conduit” – don’t frown they’re her words, not mine. Whether you like it or not, you
are
different. You combine intellect and intuition. That’s unusual, and it’s also disconcerting, particularly when you don’t even bother to hide it. Most smart people know enough not to appear too clever. You don’t even bother to try.’

Fenwick did what he always did when he was lost for words, shrugged non-commitally. He made a show of looking for a bottle of water then concentrated on opening the complicated, sportsman-friendly top. MacIntyre wasn’t fooled.

‘Ask yourself: why are you still a chief inspector? I’m your age and I’m a superintendent, and it’s not necessarily because I’m better than you are. Why has it never happened for you?’

Another shrug.

‘It just never came along.’

He looked around, keen for the driver to return.

‘I don’t buy it. That suggests a lack of ambition that isn’t credible.’

Fenwick took a deep breath and tried to control his tone.

‘At the time I should have been thinking about my career, other things stood in the way.’

‘You mean your wife’s illness. Yes, I read about that in your file. Reason enough at the time perhaps but not now. There’s got to be more to it.’

Fenwick could feel a vein pulse in his jaw. Perhaps the man was being deliberately provocative but he wasn’t in the mood to be goaded. Yes, he had a temper. Yes, he had made it clear on more than one occasion that the ACC was an idiot, but those days were behind him. He told himself that he had learnt discretion. The last thing he was going to do was prove himself wrong to this nosy prick.

MacIntyre’s phone rang allowing him to avoid further conversation. The driver returned and no more was said as they drove on. He slept.

In his dream he watched as Ginny ran her bath and slid beneath the bubbles. He was trapped outside the bathroom window but he could see everything. The scene changed. He was behind Smith as he crept up the stairs. Fenwick tried to hold him back but Smith shrugged him off as if he were of no more substance than a ghost.

Ginny was towelling herself dry. He could see her even though the door was almost closed. When she turned and saw Smith her mouth opened in a silent scream but she didn’t try to escape. Instead she picked up something that he couldn’t see and advanced towards him.
She
was the predator, smiling now. Smith turned to run. Ginny threw herself on top of him. Her hand with its invisible weapon rose and fell, inflicting terrible wounds on the man beneath her. An arc of warm blood spurted out, splattering a thick, cherry-red spray over Fenwick’s face and neck. He swiped at it in a sudden panic and woke up.

Another summer shower was sweeping across the sky. Raindrops from the open window dripped onto his face. He closed it, feeling shaken and disorientated. MacIntyre was still on the phone. The dream had disturbed him. As he stared at the water droplets on the glass he tried to sort through the images for meaning but it alluded him.

He pulled the scene of crime photographs from his briefcase, feeling nauseous at the lurch and roll of the car. There were so many images. He sifted through them until a close-up of Ginny’s hand gripped tight around a shard of glass held his attention. The broken edges had cut into her palm and along the inside of her knuckles but she held it tight despite the agony of the grip.

Blood had run down beyond her wrist. The shard was thick with it. Fenwick looked at the picture again and his head cleared. Unexpected tears filled his eyes and he blinked them away. She had fought back, this tough little eighteen-year-old. She had kicked and scratched and screamed. And she had stabbed him. That wasn’t her blood staining the glass she had used as a dagger. It was his. She had wounded him! The thought filled him with primeval glee, sending a jolt through his exhausted body. He looked up. MacIntyre was staring at him, phone forgotten. His habitual look of amused curiosity had been replaced with something else. Was it concern? No. It was expectation.

‘You’ve found something in those pictures.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Look at this.’ He handed him the photograph of Ginny’s right hand. ‘That’s his blood, not hers. It was her weapon. She stabbed him with it. Why else is the blood so thick on the edges away from her hand?’

MacIntyre took the picture from him again.

‘There was so much blood in that room. It could have come from anywhere.’

‘I don’t think so. In the wider shots you can see clearly that a pattern of blood goes up and away from her hand.’

MacIntyre nodded slowly.

‘It’s possible. Why are you so convinced?’

Fenwick was not about to share his dream with him.

‘It’s easily tested. SOCO will have kept the fragments numbered and bagged. See if all the blood matches hers.’

MacIntyre called in the new information. They were at Watford when the phone rang. A motorbike had been found hidden in the woods. In the panniers were clothes, a laptop, hair dye, other toiletries and a pair of shoes. The fingerprints matched Smith’s. The theory was that he had been planning to return to collect it but the rapid discovery of the girl’s body and the manhunt that followed had forced him to change his plans.

‘Oh, and Cave says could you ask Knotty where he parked the car he borrowed yesterday. They can’t find it and need it back.’

The first tremor of unease for Knotty ran through Fenwick. He rang every number he could think of without success. The Constable hadn’t been seen in London, his mobile didn’t answer and his home number went through to an answering machine. Robyn had no idea where he’d gone but gave him the telephone numbers of people he’d seen before setting off back to London.

‘Problem?’ MacIntyre raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘Constable Knots has disappeared.’

‘Lazy bugger!’

‘But he’s not, is he? If he was ill he’d call in.’

‘When did you last speak to him?’

‘Over twenty-four hours ago.’

MacIntyre frowned.

‘That is odd, and Cave’s complaining about the car. I wonder if he’s had an accident somewhere. I’ll call Telford and ask them to have a look around, not that they’ll have any manpower spare.’

Fenwick started to chew the skin at the side of his thumb, a nervous habit from childhood that he thought he’d broken a long time before.

‘What’s up?’

‘I keep thinking about the patch of blood SOCO found outside the cottage. It may signify nothing, but if Smith didn’t take his bike into Telford, how did he get there? He wouldn’t have walked all the way, surely?’

‘The missing car.’ MacIntyre called Cave. Without sounding too sensational, and with laughs Fenwick could tell were forced, he explained their worries. ‘It’s far-fetched I know but it might be as well to give the car details to patrol, just in case.’

‘How would Knotty have found out the address for Smith’s cottage?’ Fenwick found it hard to believe that a junior constable had beaten him to the knowledge by a day.

‘Someone told him.’

‘But he only spoke with Miss Wallace and he said nothing to me about it afterwards.’

Just the same, he rang her.

‘Really Chief Inspector, you’ve disturbed my lunch and I have guests.’

‘This is important. Did you tell Constable Knots anything about where the Smiths used to go on holiday?’

There was a startled pause.

‘Why,
yes
, Chief Inspector, how very clever of you. It was only a casual remark but I remember he wrote it down in his notebook.’ She repeated the information.

Fenwick rang off and covered his face with his hand. ‘You idiot, Knotty! Why did you go off on your own like that? Why didn’t you
tell
me?’ He stared at MacIntyre, sick to his stomach. ‘He went out to the cottage. The teacher told him she’d seen the Smiths by the lake and Smith senior had told her about his holiday home.’

‘So Knotty found him.’

‘It has to be. Why else has he disappeared? Dear God,’ Fenwick swallowed to keep the sickness from his mouth, ‘we have to find him.’

‘Smith or Knotty?’

Fenwick looked MacIntyre hard in the face.

‘Both.’

Wendy Smith swallowed two paracetamol with the last of her coffee and winced as the second pill stuck in her throat. She had been off work for three days with the flu and still felt rough. The last thing she wanted to do was drive over to Shropshire but Dave had been insistent. He had called her in one of those moods that told her the only way out without a beating was blind obedience.

The instructions had been precise and succinct: check the letter drop, pick up some cash and drive over to meet him. Even the sound of the destination made her shudder. In a house nearby her childhood had ended. She’d been eleven years old when Cousin Dave had started her ‘education’, he fourteen and her idol. She had followed him everywhere, his willing slave; covering for him, lying for him and loving him.

So when he had started making her do
that
for him too, she had taken it as a compliment. It was the most private part of him and he allowed her to touch him there. His reaction the first time had almost scared her away but he had been so kind afterwards, washing her hands and sponging her shirt clean that it had been worth it.

She had grown used to touching him, to the reaction of his body. The fact that it was their secret made her special somehow. Then her periods started, her chest went from flat to embarrassing almost over night and his needs changed. She still woke in a sweat at night from dreaming about the first time that he really explored her. He had hurt her so much that she had squealed with pain for him to stop but he’d carried on and she had almost blacked out.

Afterwards there was new excitement in his eyes. Looking back through years of exploitation, she recognised it as the first time that he had discovered that hurting her made the sex even more exciting. She should have left then, run away, but instead, slowly, he had conditioned her to enjoy his brand of sex and punishment. Sometimes afterwards he would surprise her with a gift, stolen perhaps but she didn’t care, and he would kiss and pet her. She would be happy and hope that next time would be different, but the violence the next time would be worse, the degradation absolute. Still Wendy had waited, hoping that in time he would change if only she could love him enough.

As Wendy dressed and found her car keys she tried hard not to think about her life. The only time she was happy was when she was at work, caring for people, doing her best to stop them hurting. She could sympathise with their pain and loss of dignity and it made her a good nurse. There was only one ward she avoided, which made her the odd one out among her colleagues. For her, the maternity ward was purgatory. She had been fourteen when she’d had her first abortion. Dave organised it and she had been too terrified to do anything but follow his commands.

The ‘doctor’ had worked out of an address in a rundown part of Birmingham in a terraced house that reeked of bleach and something organic and disgusting beneath. His breath had smelled of onions but his hands had been clean and he had tried his best not to hurt her. She went home, aching and sore, with a giant sanitary towel between her legs. When she cried off school, her mum had said, ‘suit yourself’. For three days she’d stayed at home, until the bleeding and the pain became manageable.

Wendy picked up her bags and locked the flat. She didn’t know why she’d been thinking about the past so much recently. Normally it was locked away behind a secure wall of denial but during her flu, scenes from her adolescence had played in her mind continuously.

It was a short drive to pick up the letters and a branch of their bank was two hundred yards away. There were two letters from Wayne waiting. When she tried to withdraw the maximum allowance the machine ate her card so she had to go into the bank and cash a cheque. There was a good as new clothes shop next door and she paused to look in the window. The bright summer sunshine threw her reflection back and she had to peer to make out the dresses.

As she stood back again she noticed the reflection of a woman standing on the opposite side of the road. There was nothing distinguishing about her but something in her attitude made Wendy cautious. Under the pretence of being interested in the window display she studied the woman’s reflection, memorising her face and clothes. She walked a few paces down the road slowly, looking in other shop windows. The woman crossed the road and started walking behind her. When Wendy stopped, so did she, bending to tie the shoelace of trainers that were already done up.

Wendy’s instincts, refined over years of abuse and survival, were screaming a warning. She’d done nothing wrong but that didn’t make her unconcerned. Memory of the Crimewatch programme the previous week about the murder of a girl in London and the e-fit of the man the police were looking for came back to her. If this woman was following her then there had to be a reason and if it wasn’t for anything she’d done…she stopped the thought and concentrated on the immediate problem of how to get rid of her.

There was a minimarket on the street close to where she had parked her car. Wendy quickened her pace, glancing at her watch as if she was in a hurry, and made for the store. Inside she walked to the refrigerator at the back and started examining packs of bacon. The woman didn’t follow her in but waited on the pavement outside. When she turned away Wendy made her way to the rear exit.

No one stopped her. There was a yard outside with gates leading to the road. She pushed one open and found herself in a street of terraced houses she didn’t recognise. Her heart was racing. She was close to panic so forced herself to take deep breaths and concentrate. In her mind, she visualised the shop front, the roads she knew and the location of her car. She should turn right, and then right again.

Her car was where she’d left it, a pale blue, three-door Peugeot that was long past its best. Her hands were trembling so much she had difficulty inserting the key into the ignition. On the third attempt, it slid in and the engine started at once. Aging but reliable, like its owner.

She looked in the rear-view mirror and pulled away. It was only when she had reached the M55 that she realised she could simply have given herself up. It wasn’t an expected thought but it was a strangely comforting one. If she’d only gone over to the woman the uncertainty would have soon been over. They would tell her; she would know one way or another whether her fears were the product of an over-active imagination as she kept telling herself, or not. She had written down the telephone number from Crimewatch but all the officers on the programme had looked stern and unforgiving. If a woman had been there maybe she would have used it. Even now, all it would take was one phone call; she could still turn around.

Wendy missed the last exit for Birmingham, not on purpose but it flashed by while she was overtaking a lorry. At the next service station she pulled over and turned on the radio, a local music station. She needed the distraction to keep her thoughts from spinning. The tunes meant nothing to her. She never bought the latest hits because she had no one to share them with.

She was sipping a takeaway coffee when the news came on at the top of the hour. The main item was the murder of a young girl in Telford. Wendy felt the acidity of the coffee jolt her stomach even before she heard his name.

‘Police are asking the public to be on the lookout for David Smith, a white male, age twenty-seven, six feet tall, slim with blue eyes. He may have scratches to his hands and face. If anyone does see him, they are to call Chief Inspector Cave, at Telford Division…’

The voice droned on but Wendy didn’t hear it. She was bent double over a wastepaper bin vomiting up bile and drips of coffee.

‘You all right love?’

A kindly looking man in his fifties was bending over her.

‘Yes,’ she drew a shaking hand over her damp face.

‘Only you don’t look right. Are you sure you should be driving? I can give you a lift.’

‘No, really. I’m OK.’

Wendy went back to her car, shaking the man’s unwelcome attentions away. He was probably well meaning but she didn’t trust him. In fact, she trusted no one. She tried to think. Dave had called her in the middle of the night and told her where to meet him. He had said it was urgent but nothing in his voice had given her reason to think anything was wrong. Now this. The police wanted him in connection with the murder of a young girl. She started to cry, fat tears dropping from her cheeks onto her jeans, but she made no noise. Crying silently was something she had learnt as a child. The last time she had howled was after the second abortion, the one that had gone so horribly wrong.

Her father had given her the strapping of her life when she was finally well enough to return from hospital, scarred and sterile. He had beaten the truth out of her, no mistake, and there had been a terrible row with Dave and his parents. Dad was all for going to the police. She’d been under-age and he wanted his revenge. Her mother had simply poured the drinks. Somehow, Dave’s dad had persuaded him not to go. They’d gone into another room and spoken there for ages and when they’d come out there was no more talk of the police. She had gone off to nursing college a year later and hadn’t been home since.

Stop it! She beat her closed fists against the sides of her head to prevent her mind from being ambushed by the past. There, she was calm again, almost in control. When she locked the car her hands barely trembled. There were phones banked against the outside wall of the service station. She told herself that if no one was using them it would be a sign that she should call the police. Nobody was there so she dialled the number for Telford that had just been broadcast. Perhaps local police would be more friendly. The man at the end sounded bored but when she said she might have information about David Smith his tone changed to one of excitement. Hearing it made her scared all over again and she insisted on speaking to a woman.

‘The detectives on the case are all out, love, won’t I do?’

‘No!’

‘OK, calm down; hang on a minute.’ She heard him put the receiver down and call out in the background.
‘Robyn, have you got a sec? A lass on the phone says she has something on Smith but will only talk to a woman.’
Footsteps.

‘Hello? This is Constable Robyn Powell; who’s that?’

‘My name’s not important.’ But Wendy had forgotten to disguise her accent that hadn’t changed despite the years away.

‘Wendy? Is that you, love?’ The woman knew her name! ‘We’ve been hoping to speak to you. Don’t worry, you’ll be quite safe talking to us; there’s nothing to concern you. We want to help you.’

Wendy pulled the receiver away from her ear as if it had become red hot and stared at it in horror. There was no way she could provide information if it wasn’t anonymous. Robyn was still talking, throwing out meaningless soothing words, offering reassurance and protection. Wendy ignored her and put the receiver back gently. Tears threatened but she sniffed them away angrily. There was no turning back now. No matter what the police said about protection she couldn’t trust them. They didn’t know Dave. If she betrayed him he would find a way to destroy her.

She walked back to the car and drove away. The radio blared on; some ballad or other and she remembered that she loved Dave as much as she feared him. What had she been thinking of to doubt him? Guilt flooded her. She had to keep faith; the police were crazy to suspect Dave. They were always getting things wrong. Heaven knows how they had linked his name to that poor girl but it meant nothing.

Nobody appreciated him except her. She was the one special person in his life and some day he would realise that and their life together would get better. She tried to smile but the thin voice that she relegated to the farthest corner of her mind nagged at her. It was a smart alec voice. When something went wrong with Dave it was the voice that told her to leave him. Like when he had ‘given’ her to his horrible friend, it was the voice that called her a whore. It was the voice that told her now to get away but she decided once again to ignore it. No love came for free. Everything was going to be fine as long as she didn’t mess it up.

Smith lay under blankets that scratched the sensitive skin on his face and neck. Outside the sky was a flat blue-grey, the traffic heavy. She had picked him up early that morning after he had dared to leave his hastily assembled cave in the refuse. He had spent much of his long wait for her lying within two extra large garbage sacks, breathing rancid air through a tiny join. He had learnt the trick first at fifteen, during his early years of testing his own boundaries of behaviour.

Apart from his father’s prying, he had rarely been questioned, let alone caught but on one occasion the police had been waiting. His knowledge of the alleys and gardens in Telford had saved him and he had then hidden himself in a pile of rubbish sacks behind a block of flats. That day there had been a twist to the usual taunts at school. They had called him ‘stink bomb’ but he hadn’t cared. He’d proved himself smarter than the police and everyone else at that pathetic school, let them call him what they would. Afterwards he had started to carry extra large refuse sacks with him, the black ones preferably because they were less conspicuous. He had practised using them in his bedroom until he’d perfected how to fold them ready for use so that they could be opened with a flick of the wrist and he could be hidden in less than a minute.

When he had run from that house yesterday, concealing bloody wounds to his chin and throat with a thick white towel beneath a clean hooded sweatshirt, he had automatically run back to his old haunts. But in the eight years since he had left, the town refuse disposal had been improved. There were wheelie-bins where there had been mounds of sacks and as police sirens gathered in the distance he’d begun to panic.

Then he remembered the municipal waste facility he had seen on the outskirts. He ran through a large estate, ignoring the burning pain from his wounds, cut across a by-pass, along a footpath he thought he remembered and out of an underpass by a stout chain-link fence that bordered the site. He had been in agony but fear was stronger than pain and he cut through the fence with his wire cutters, commanding his shaking hands to obey. Tracker dogs barked in the far distance sending a shock through him but he told himself that he still had time to do things properly.