Path of Needles (15 page)

‘Pardon me?’

Alice drew a deep breath. ‘Sorry; it’s my fault, I’m not
explaining myself very well. It’s just, in the stories, it’s the stepmother who tries to kill Snow White, we know that much. The wolf in “Little Red” – well, I think that’s misleading, because it’s the mother who sends her into the forest, isn’t it? All alone, where the big bad wolf lives? And telling her not to leave the path – isn’t that asking for trouble, really, putting the idea into her head?’

Cate caught her breath. ‘That’s just the story,’ she said. ‘The reality could have been different. Anyway, are you saying they were
both
killed by their mothers, and left that way coincidentally?’

‘No – I’m saying everything’s been done to fit the stories, and it would fit them too if the killer was female.’

Cate paused. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘It’s a theory. I won’t rule it out, but we have to take into account that someone overpowered these girls, and that probably required strength; someone certainly had to move them. We can’t rule out the idea that it could be a man.’

But Alice hadn’t finished. ‘A woman could have lured the girls to go with them somehow. It’s obvious, really, isn’t it? They might have trusted a woman, gone with her for some reason. And it’s not just about the characters in the stories, the evil stepmother or the faulty mother – women tend to know more about fairy tales than men. I’ve never had more than 5 or 10 per cent of males on my course. Someone knew a fair amount in order to set this up.’

Cate narrowed her eyes. Yes, they did: the killer was
someone who was knowledgeable, who knew the area. And she remembered Heath’s words:
went for a walk. A
walk.
Don’t you find that strange?

She said goodbye, hung up. They had to focus on the facts, not Alice’s fictions, and that came back to the victim; it was the girl they had to think about now. They had to find out who had killed her and how they’d done it, and to do that, they also needed to know who she was. Cate was obviously going to be busy, assuming Heath kept her on the team. Stocky might not like it, but she couldn’t help that. She looked around the desks, couldn’t see him now – perhaps he was getting on with some of that work he’d mentioned, no doubt wishing he could pass the filing on to her. Would she always be around to do it for him? Stocky seemed happy where he was, despite his odd demeanour earlier. But did he think she would stay here for ever? Unlike him she had no family here, only a half-empty flat and her own ambition, pulling her in different directions.

‘We have an estimated time for the body dump.’ She jumped as the voice came from behind her. It was Dan Thacker. ‘It was in the early hours. We’re double-checking Cosgrove’s movements now, but Heath’s right, it doesn’t look like it could have been him.’

‘Okay. Thanks for letting me know.’

‘We also have a possible lead on a mis-per.’ He paused, grinned. ‘Come on. Looks like you’re with me.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The girl’s figure was little removed from a lithe young boy’s, and her hair was white – it could be a wig or possibly it was so tormented by bleach that it had turned to straw. Her eyes were close-set and looked shrunken behind harsh black eyeliner. Her thin lips were also rimmed with a dark line of some plum-coloured make-up, which was bleeding into a smoker’s puckered skin. She looked about seventeen, and as if she hadn’t slept in three days. She had given her name as Kiara, something that sounded so unlikely Cate found herself wondering if it was actually true.

They sat on either side of a chipped Formica table in a greasy spoon on the outskirts of Leeds. It was raining outside, a warm spring shower, and the café was overheated. The greasy glass was steamed up and running with moisture; there was no way Dan could keep an eye on them as he had promised.

The girl was on edge, paranoia making her skittish,
which was why Dan had opted to stay outside and let Cate talk to her alone. Kiara’s black-lined eyes kept darting towards the door, as if she was expecting a pimp to burst in on her at any second, or maybe other toms, ready to rip her to shreds for talking to the police.

‘It’s all right,’ Cate said, ‘you’re not in any trouble, like we told you. It’s just, we heard you’d spoken to someone on the beat, that’s all – you said your friend was missing, and we want to help, if we can. We want to try and find her.’

The girl threw herself back in her seat, sighing noisily. ‘Weren’t none of you bothered when I said. How come you’ve turned up now?’

Cate glanced at the opaque window once more and answered. ‘Your friend’s disappearance might be related to a case we’re working on. I can’t tell you any more than that now, I’m afraid. Do you want a drink, Kiara? Water? Coke?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not your friend,’ she said, ‘so don’t try and act like it.’

‘All right, then let’s get to it. You told a police officer your friend was missing. You said she got into a car – you didn’t know what make or colour – and she never came back. You didn’t see the driver either. Right so far?’

Kiara was staring at the table. She sniffed, and her face relaxed for a brief moment, making her look much younger. Cate spoke more softly: ‘And you didn’t see anything else? – you didn’t get a look at the registration plate?’

‘Look,’ the girl said, ‘I was busy, a’right? I just wanted ’em to listen to me. We watched out for each other, ‘er and me – we always did. Only that night it was really clear, like, and there was this bird singing, and all I could think was …’ She paused.

‘Was?’

‘About ’ow it used to be when I was a kid.’ She almost smiled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that in a long time – being a kid, I mean.’

Cate sighed. ‘Help me find out what happened to her, Kiara, please.’

Kiara flashed her a glance. ‘I didn’t see it,’ she said, so low Cate almost couldn’t hear. ‘I didn’t see a car, like, didn’t see if she got in, a’right? But I ’eard one, so she must’ve done. What else could it’ve been?’

‘You didn’t see her get into a vehicle?’

‘No. Like I said, I ’eard one. It was speeding up, like it was driving away. And when I went back round the corner, she weren’t there no more.’

Cate drew a deep breath. ‘You gave her name as Candy. We both know that’s not her real name. You said she was eighteen. I’m not sure that’s her real age, either.’ She found herself looking down at Kiara’s skinny arms, the pale skin, mottled with the same track marks the victim had. What had Alice called it –
the path of needles?
She wondered how long it was since this girl had made her choice; whether she’d ever really had a choice to make.

Kiara sat up straighter and put her hands on the table,
ready to push herself up. ‘You found ‘er,’ she said. ‘She’s dead, in’t she? That’s what this is, in’t it?’

‘I can’t say, Kiara. You understand, we haven’t made any definite connection between this other case and your friend. We need a name – then we’ll see what we can do for her.’

‘For my friend, or some other lass you’ve found? You said you dun’t even know it’s ‘er.’

‘No, we don’t, I’m not going to lie to you. But if we have her real name, we may be able to track down a relative, or someone else who can help.’

Kiara sniffed, wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘She talked about ’er gran once.’

Cate stared before she spoke. ‘All right. Maybe she can help us work out what happened to her. That’s all we want, Kiara. We’re not looking to cause trouble for you or your friend.’

The girl scowled. ‘I think she ‘ad a flat in south Leeds, a’right? ’er name’s Treesa.’

‘Treesa – Teresa? Teresa who, Kiara?’

‘King. It weren’t ’er dad’s name. She called ’erself that for ’er gran. She never ‘ad no dad, not really.’ Kiara’s face reddened, then she pinched her lip between her fingers. It made her look more than ever like a child, and Cate found herself wondering how she had passed from those days to this, how anybody did. Without the harsh eyeliner, her dry skin, the pallor of tiredness, given a good night’s
sleep instead of plying her trade in some stinking alley, and the girl might have been pretty.

She muttered something.

‘What was that?’

Kiara pushed herself to her feet, her chair scraping across the cheap lino. ‘I said you’d better find her.’ She turned, strode across the café and yanked open the door. She looked back once, a brief, angry glare, before heading outside and into the rain.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The old woman lived on the edge of an industrial wilderness, a labyrinth of crumbling concrete, twisted metal and discarded things. It was grey even in the height of springtime, but she rarely looked out of the window: the view was masked by yellowing net curtains that gave the light inside an odd tone, as though from an enraged storm.

Her house was at the centre of a row of red-brick terraces, and each room was long and thin. Sometimes she could hear her neighbours moving around, their footsteps banging on the stairs, doors slamming. She rarely heard their voices, but when she did they were raised and yet muffled too, as if they could only shout in vowel sounds. She didn’t try to make out the words and she didn’t interfere when the accompanying banging sounds became softer, as though fists were falling on flesh rather than a door or table. It was none of her business. She didn’t trouble her neighbours and they didn’t trouble her. Sometimes they would play loud music into the night and she would
lie awake in the dark, listening to it, trying to work out what it was about the muffled cadences she liked.

She never troubled to play music herself. When her granddaughter had been young, all breathless excitement at every little thing, she had watched her jigging along to music on the television, songs to which the child had inexplicably known the words, and felt like she was speaking some language she’d never learned. She remembered wishing she could ask someone about it, but her daughter – the child’s mother – was long gone by then, and the father had disappeared long before that. Anyway, she wouldn’t have been sure how to frame the question. At those times, the child had been her joy. Sometimes she had looked at her and wondered where on earth she had come from: surely not her own daughter.

The child had filled these rooms with laughter, seeing delight where the woman saw only walls. Now she was gone too, and only the walls remained. Her grandchild had discovered new things as she had grown: learning what boys were, what life was. They had not been good things for her to learn.

She pushed herself up from the sofa – it never used to sag that way, and she couldn’t remember when it began to be such an effort – and shuffled into the kitchen. It was small, and she could put her hand on everything she needed just by turning around, but it was hers, and it was a comfort that her things stayed where she had put them now. Perhaps it had been a good thing the girl had gone
after all. She could even leave her purse on the sideboard, open to view, and it would not be touched.

And yet – there were no sounds now except her own, no
thrub-thrub-thrub
of the music Teresa had liked, music without words.

She turned on the tap hard, so that the water gushed loudly against the sink. She glanced up at the window and saw shadows moving against the dim yellow light. She blinked. Her eyes were slow to focus and watered continually, as her own mother’s had before she died. She sloshed the water in the bowl, ready for the washing-up. That was what she would do, plain, ordinary things, the kind of things on which her life was built. The shapes outside were coming closer. It could be the council again, going to see the family next door, or the police; she wasn’t sure which and didn’t really care. It was always one or the other, knocking and knocking and trying to get in.

She jumped as a sharp rap rang out against her own door. She turned and faced the sound as if it was something she could see.

They would go away soon and leave her alone. She leaned over and turned off the tap, and silence flooded back.

The knock came again, tight, hard knuckles, and this time she forced herself to move. From the hallway she could see two shapes through the glass panel in the door; it made her think of an occasion – what, twelve, thirteen years ago? – when the bailiffs had come. She had stood against the wall, just like this, keeping quite still so they
wouldn’t see her move. Teresa had clung to her legs then and she’d put one hand on her head to steady the child, the other over her sweet little mouth. Teresa hadn’t needed it, she had remained quite still, not saying a word. It was as if she had known.

The letterbox opened with a clatter and a voice called through it, ‘Mrs King? We need to speak to you.’

It wasn’t a debt collector’s voice.

‘Mrs King?’ The voice was a young woman’s.

For a moment her heart jumped, dully painful, as she thought,
Has she come home?
But no, it hadn’t been Teresa’s voice. She didn’t want to let the woman in, all the same. She wanted nothing more than her own quiet rooms, the familiar things; and then she walked to the door and turned the key because she knew that when the world came knocking, it wouldn’t leave without taking what it demanded: your money, your television, your sewing machine; your self-respect. Your life.

When she saw the young girl standing on her doorstep, a young man at her side, she knew; she could sense it. They weren’t in uniform, but they were police. She could smell it on them. Their eyes were already full of sympathy and she could already hear the empty phrases running through their minds.
The child
, she thought.

She looked at the policewoman and the policeman standing next to her, threw the door open wider so that it rattled against the wall and motioned them both inside.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Alice slipped out of her back door without troubling to lock it behind her and walked through the garden, ducking under the apple tree’s lowest branches. The wood was there, waiting, and she let herself out of the gate and stepped into it. It was late evening, but under the trees it was already dark, rich in shadows. Everything was silent except her footsteps against the grey, hard-packed ground. Outside her gate the beech trees stood like stone pillars, and there was no undergrowth; the path was knuckled with tree roots and stones, everything as grey as the rest in the half-light.