Innocent Blood (3 page)

Martin followed her glance and saw the shiny snail-like path that wound its way through the tufts of yellow grass down to the stream just a few yards from where the body lay.

‘I’ll go,’ he grunted. It was the last thing on earth he wanted to do.

‘And I’m coming with you,’ she said firmly.

He was about to reply but held his tongue, for he knew that there was no arguing with the silly bitch.

Together they made their way slowly down the muddy path, carefully gauging each foothold. Brenda slipped once and fell on her backside, but she managed to grasp a tuft of grass to stop her slithering all the way to the bottom. Eventually they reached the banks of the little stream without further mishap.

‘You OK?’ he asked, breathlessly, holding his hand out to help her make the final steps to the water’s edge.

With her makeup awry, a sweaty face and a mud-smeared dress she looked and felt far from OK, but she nodded.

As they approached the little figure lying in the stream they could see that it was a young girl. She was dressed in a bright yellow dress – a party dress, thought Brenda – which complemented her blonde curls. She lay immobile, face down in the water.

‘My God, she is dead,’ said Brenda, stifling a sob.

Martin bent down by the body and with some effort turned it over.

Brenda screamed when she saw the little girl’s face. It was covered in blood and her features were disfigured as though she had been badly beaten.

‘Oh, my God,’ sobbed Brenda. ‘The poor thing’s been murdered.’

Martin leaned against the wall of the telephone box as he dialled 999. Brenda stood in the doorway, shivering and distraught. The box was dank and smelled of urine and sweat. Felt-tip obscenities decorated the window.

‘Emergency, which service?’ It was a woman’s voice, tinny and remote.

‘The police, I want to report …’ He paused, his mouth dry and his mind in a whirl. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say. ‘I want to report … a murder.’

‘I’m putting you through,’ came the reply – cool, calm and neutral.

‘Police. How can I help you?’ It was a man this time.

‘There’s been a murder. A little girl. In Mollicar Woods. She’s in the stream. Dead.’

‘And what’s your name, sir?’

‘You don’t want my name. You need to get the police to Mollicar Woods. A young girl. About eight or nine. Been killed. Beaten.’

‘And who are you, sir?’

Martin was about to slam down the receiver when Brenda moved forward and pressed her body against his. ‘You’ve got to tell them, Martin. They’ll only find out and then it’ll be the worse for us.’

He hesitated for a moment, his hand hovering over the telephone ready to replace the receiver.

‘Go on,’ Brenda urged. ‘If you don’t, I will.’

Martin closed his eyes in despair and placed the receiver to his ear. ‘My name is Martin Brook,’ he said, his voice flat and unemotional.

Paul Snow woke abruptly, his body arched awkwardly under the covers, bathed in sweat. It was the dream again. The nightmare. The same bloody nightmare. Even after a year it came back to taunt him, to unsettle him. To take him to the brink and remind him of his sins. He felt the gun in his hand. He heard the crack as he pulled the trigger and he saw the shock and look of horror on the dying man’s face.

But it was Snow, not the dying man, who cried out in agony at what he had done and the cry dragged him back to consciousness. He lay for a few moments staring at the ceiling until his pulse rate had returned to normal. It must have been that conversation he’d had with Bob about murderers being crazy that had stimulated the nightmare again. Well, not so much a nightmare as a reminder of the time when he had killed a man in cold blood to save his own neck.

He lay in the darkness, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal, which it did after a little while. Accepting that this was all the sleep he was going to get that night – or indeed wanted that night, if it meant returning to these disturbing dreams – Snow sat up in bed, switched on the bedside light and reached for a pack of cigarettes and lighter.

He lay against the pillow, smoking and trying to turn his thoughts away from the nightmare, but the images remained, vibrant and fierce at the forefront of his mind. He heard the gun going off once more, the sound echoing in his head like the shutting of an iron door at the end of a long dark corridor. He grimaced more out of irritation at his own weakness than at the unpleasant memories these sensations provoked.

Stubbing his cigarette out with a heavy sigh, he threw back the covers, got out of bed, slipped on his dressing gown and padded downstairs to the kitchen, where he made himself a cup of strong instant coffee. Holding the warm mug in both hands, he sat in the gloom at the kitchen table as daylight gradually seeped into the room. At length shafts of sunlight formed pools of yellow light on the floor.

It was going to be a nice day.

Weatherwise, at least.

After a second coffee and another cigarette, Snow began to feel more relaxed or at least his old self. He never considered that at any time in his life he was ‘relaxed’; his brain was too active to allow for that state of affairs. His mind was never in ‘neutral’; there was always something to think about.

And something to worry about.

Living alone, a solitary man, Paul was conscious of all his actions, monitoring his behaviour, his reactions to and treatment of others. It was as though he was constantly standing outside his own body observing himself. He was always on the alert to repress his feelings. Feelings that were not regarded as ‘normal’. These were dangerous – as he had found out in the past – and could easily spell the end of the career that he loved. He had to remain firmly in the closet. The poet John Donne had said that no man was an island. Well, thought Paul, I’m out to prove him wrong.

Stubbing out his cigarette, he washed his mug, dried it and placed it back in the cupboard, emptied the ashtray and wiped down the work surface so that the kitchen looked as it did when he had first entered: tidy, and pristine. It was his way. He shaved and showered, washing some of the greyness of the night away, and then got dressed. He took pleasure in putting on a new shirt, enjoying the sensation of the cool material against his shower-warm skin. It was pale blue and he chose a blue and red striped tie to wear with it. He wasn’t an extravagant dresser but he took pride in always appearing smart. He was a stickler for tidiness in everything, including dress. Little did he know then that by the end of the day both his shiny black shoes and the turn-ups on his well-cut pin-striped suit would end up caked in mud.

Snow was completing some routine paperwork concerned with the Andrew Beaumont arrest in his office around ten in the morning when Bob Fellows popped his head round his office door. ‘Got a missing person … young girl gone AWOL.’

Snow sighed. He had been hoping for something interesting to turn up and take him away from this mundane task, but not that kind of interesting. This was nasty. Missing kids rarely had a happy ending.

‘OK,’ he said, closing the file on his desk. ‘Give me the low-down.’

Bob filled his boss in on the background of the case as they drove out of Huddersfield to the district of Lindley, three miles from the town centre. Gillian, the nine-year-old daughter of Melanie and Carl Bolton, had been reported missing the previous evening. When she hadn’t returned home from playing out and it had begun to grow dark, the parents had gone out to search for her, without success. Then they had rung round her schoolfriends but to no avail. Slowly panic had begun to set in and the Boltons contacted the police. The couple had been visited by the village DS who had set up a local search. This too had been fruitless. So far.

The Boltons’ house was one of many, all virtually identical, on a newish estate in the Lindley area. It was situated on Buttercup Close, a narrow cul-de-sac where the properties rubbed shoulders with each other and their driveways were scattered with pedal cars and prams and other kiddie stuff. To Snow these houses were the slums of the future. Cheaply constructed hutches with shoddy workmanship masked by superficial glamour which would fade within a year of purchase. Cracks would appear in the plaster, doors would warp, plumbing errors would materialise, the white goods would fail and the cheap all-inclusive carpets would wear thin. Five years down the line they would look worse than a clapped-out row of council houses. These estates depressed Snow more than he could say.

He pressed the doorbell of number 23 and heard the mechanical musical tones of ‘Greensleeves’ playing in the hallway. The door was opened by a young woman aged somewhere in her late twenties, dressed in a short skirt and flowery top. Mrs Bolton was petite with a pretty face but it was pale and haggard. Her eyes were red with crying and her expression was uncertain, as though she didn’t know whether to be angry or sad.

Snow had hardly held up his ID card before she turned away and shouted down the hall, ‘Police!’ In response a figure emerged from the shadows. This was a skinny young man – the husband no doubt, thought Snow, or partner. You couldn’t always be sure they were married these days, even if they had a home and family. The man was dressed in jeans and wore a crumpled T-shirt. His face, unshaven and grey, also showed signs of sleeplessness and distress. He gazed at them, his expression a shifting mixture of hope and fear.

‘Any news? Have you got her?’ His voice rasped like a rusty hinge.

Snow shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, no. I’m here to get a bit more information to help us with our enquiries.’ He hated the cold formality of his police-speak.

Without a word, the Boltons shuffled into their sitting room under the impression that Snow and his companion would follow – which they did.

The young couple flopped down on to a battered old sofa and waited. Somewhat awkwardly, Snow and Fellows remained standing. Bob withdrew his notebook and pen in an attempt to appear business-like.

‘I know it must be distressing and annoying for you to go over the facts again, but I assure you it is important. It really is a help to us.’

Carl Bolton’s face turned sour and he looked as though he was on the verge of saying something angry and abusive, but at the last moment he thought better of it. Snow knew that when tragedy struck ordinary people like the Boltons, they quickly lost touch with not only their own emotions but the usual civilised forms of communication. Their strength and social codes were dissipated by fear and worry.

‘What time did your daughter go out to play last evening?’

‘It were about half six, after her tea.’ It was the mother who spoke. She was calm, her voice a flat monotone. She stared resolutely at her shoes.

‘Was she going to meet a friend, a group of pals?’

‘We … we don’t know.’

‘Did she usually?’

‘Sometimes she’d meet up with Sally Hardcastle and they’d go on to the waste ground behind the church and lark about.’

‘Is that what happened last night?’

Melanie Bolton shook her head. ‘No. I checked. I told that copper. Sally had a stomachache and stayed in last night.’

‘Did Gillian leave the house on friendly terms? You hadn’t been cross with her? Had a row or anything like that?’ Bob Fellows asked.

‘No, we hadn’t. She’d had her tea and was her usual chatty self.’

‘And she’s never done anything like this before?’ asked Snow as gently as he could.

‘No, she hasn’t,’ snapped Carl. ‘She’s a good girl … a good girl.’

Snow nodded. ‘You have a photograph of Gillian?’

‘We gave one to that other copper – the uniformed bloke,’ snapped Carl, his temper fraying by the second.

‘Another, a recent one, would be helpful.’

Melanie Bolton rose quickly from her chair. ‘I’ll get you one. Anything that will help.’ She managed to reach the hallway before the shoulders hunched and the tears came.

As Bob Fellows started up the car, Snow sat in the passenger seat gazing down at the colour snap of Gillian Bolton. She seemed just an ordinary, pleasant-looking nine-year-old with light-coloured hair and freckles. Her smile told the world of her innocence and her excitement with life – that bright future which was in front of her. It would not be difficult to love and care for such a kid and he empathised with the hurt, anguish and despair he knew her parents were experiencing. He was also aware that in cases like this one had to wait until the child was found and usually they were not found alive.

While this dark thought lodged itself in Snow’s mind, refusing to budge, a message came through on the radio. The body of a child had been found in Mollicar Woods by a middle-aged couple. It seemed that she answered the description of the missing girl, Gillian Bolton.

‘Fuck,’ said Snow.

PC Forsdyke saluted as he observed DI Snow approaching through the undergrowth. Snow gave him one of his curt nods of acknowledgement. ‘Down there, is she?’ he said, pointing to the sharp incline some twenty yards away.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Forsdyke. ‘She was found in the stream. Mr McKinnon is with her now.’

Chris McKinnon was the new bright-as-a-button pathologist, desperate and determined to prove himself, no matter who he upset in the process.

The two men moved to the edge and gazed down. They saw the prematurely grey McKinnon stooping over a small body dressed in a yellow frock.

‘Looks like there’s no easy way of getting down there,’ observed Bob Fellows.

‘Or back up. Come on, there’s a bit of a path over there,’ said Snow wearily.

Slowly the two men staggered and slithered down the banking, their shoes caking with mud as they did so.

At one point Fellows slipped on his backside and shot forward ahead of Snow. ‘Shit,’ he cried out. ‘I’m going to need a bloody new suit after this.’

McKinnon looked up as the two men approached. ‘Nice of you to join me, gentlemen,’ he said, a slight smile creasing his cheeks as he observed Bob Fellows’ dishevelled appearance.

‘Not much else that’s nice,’ said Snow, bending down and peering at the body of the girl. ‘What can you tell me?’

‘Strangled,’ said McKinnon matter-of-factly. ‘It’s obvious that she struggled during the process as she’s been beaten about the face. I’d say she’s been dead more than twelve hours. There’s latent bruising to arms and legs which suggests she was thrown down here after she was murdered.’