Running Girl (6 page)

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and slowly blinked. In 2006 the first Monday would have been the 7th. In 2005 the 1st. In 2004 the 2nd. So: a recurrent series of 7 integers beginning with 6 and ending with 5 in a sequence 46 integers long. Nice. Add an extra day for each of the eleven leap years. Divide by the number of series: eight times with one left over, the first number in the next series, which is ... 6.

Uncle Len was born on the 6th of August.

That was the easy part. For the next ten minutes, in mounting frustration, he plugged into the password field every possible variation of the words ‘Maxie', ‘Bojo', ‘Leonard' and ‘Barbados', together with 06, and got nowhere. He was just about to give up in disgust when he realized what he was missing. He was overlooking what Smudge liked to call the ‘bleeding obvious'. He typed in
Calypso06
and unlocked the machine.

The last item in his uncle's Sent Box was headed
Dow: Preliminary Autopsy Findings
. It had an attachment. For a few seconds Garvie sat very still, listening for any noise from downstairs. Briefly he wondered what he was going to see. Her body on the autopsy table? That body with its pale and flawless skin? Was he going to see those arms again, that throat, the almond-shaped navel? He took a deep breath and opened it quickly, and frowned.

It was a short plain document, completely unillustrated, less than two pages long, and he saw at once that it was exactly what his uncle had described. Headed simply
Clothing
, it contained eight paragraphs of text tediously itemizing facts such as size, material and colour, and two virtually unintelligible comments added in the margin
(Check microbial damage
and
Non-component debris?).
It was very dull. There were no photographs of the clothing, no photograph of Chloe, no description of her injuries, no account of discovering the body – nothing Garvie had hoped to find. Pushing his chair away from the desk, he went to stand at the window, staring out at the empty street below in disappointment.

After a while a thought came to him. Not a thought; a feeling. Not really a feeling but a sort of mental itch. He tried to catch the tail of it, couldn't, and frowned.

He glanced back at the computer screen. The itch itched and wouldn't go away. At last he returned to the desk, scrolled back to the beginning of the document and read it again. Nothing could be more tedious. But something, somewhere, was wrong. That was what his itch told him.

He began to go through the report a third time, slowly. It was like reading a foreign language.

Item: Ladies running vest. Colour heliotrope. Size small (10). Helly Hansen ‘W Pace Supportive Singlet'; synthetic fibre. Fading to labels. No visible damage.

Item: Ladies running shorts. Colour heliotrope. Size small (10). Helly Hansen ‘W Pace Lightweight Shorts'; synthetic fibre. Fading to labels. No visible damage.

Item: Ladies sneaker sock. Colour white. Size 3.5–5.0. Rohner ‘Ergonomic Sneaker Socks'; synthetic fibre. Wear to toe and heel. Oil stain on heel.

Item: Ladies sneaker sock. Colour white. Size 3.5–5.0. Rohner ‘Ergonomic Sneaker Socks'; synthetic fibre. Wear to toe and heel.

Item: ‘Shock Absorber Max' Sports Bra. Colour white. Size 34D. ‘Coolmax' synthetic fabric.

Item: Pair of ‘Icebreaker' Boy Shorts. Colour white. Size small. 100% pure merino.

Item: Ladies running shoe, left foot. Colour lime green with orange pattern and laces. Size 4. Asics ‘Lady GEL-Torana 4 Trail Running Shoes'; synthetic materials. New. No visible damage.

Item: Ladies running shoe, right foot. Colour lime green with orange pattern and laces. Size 4. Asics ‘Lady GEL-Torana 4 Trail Running Shoes'; synthetic materials. New. No visible damage.

An hour later Garvie was still at the desk. It was late now but he had lost all sense of time. He continued to read the same sentences over and over, and the itch prickled furiously. Somewhere, threaded through the document like an almost-invisible crack in a glass, was a flaw – something that didn't make sense. He hadn't found it yet. But he was going to.

He was going to use all his famous mental ability to find it.

LOCATION: NOTORIOUSLY CLAUSTROPHOBIC
basement interview room, a windowless bunker.

Aspect of interviewer: cold and expressionless.

Aspect of interviewees: n/a.

DI SINGH:
Are you OK now? Can we continue? So, you worked all day at the Marsh Academy, where you are ... [
Sound of rustling paper
]

EILEEN DOW:
Health visitor.

DI SINGH:
Health visitor. And then you went down to Five Mile Centre, to meet your husband. And you arrived there at about six?

EILEEN DOW:
Yes.

DI SINGH:
What time did your husband get there?

EILEEN DOW:
Same time. Mick'd been working at a property in Dandelion Hill.

DI SINGH:
And you stayed at the Centre till what time?

EILEEN DOW:
Seven. I think.

DI SINGH:
Then you drove home. In Mick's van?

EILEEN DOW:
Yes.

DI SINGH:
And Chloe wasn't in when you got there?

EILEEN DOW:
No. I told you. She'd gone already. There was just that note.

DI SINGH:
On the living-room table?

EILEEN DOW:
Yes. [
Sound of crying
]

DI SINGH:
I'm sorry to have to ask you these questions. [
Silence
] Can we continue?

EILEEN DOW:
Yes.

DI SINGH:
Did you notice anything unusual in the house when you got there?

EILEEN DOW:
Like what?

DI SINGH:
Anything out of the ordinary. Signs of a disturbance. Things out of place. Things missing.

EILEEN DOW:
No. Nothing like that. Mick keeps the house spotless.

DI SINGH:
I see. Then you've told me [
sound of pages being turned
] what happened after that. You had tea, you plated Chloe's tea and put it in the fridge. At nine you rang Chloe's friends. I have a list of them [
sound of pages being rustled
]. A little after nine Mick went out in his van, looking for Chloe. When he got back, at half past ten, you called the emergency services. All that's correct? Good. Now, Mrs Dow, I'd like to ask you just a few questions about Chloe. I'm sorry to have to do this. But it will help us to know more about her. Can I proceed?

EILEEN DOW:
I suppose so.

DI SINGH:
Was she happy?

EILEEN DOW
[
silence
]
:
I don't know why you ask me that.

DI SINGH:
You mentioned [
sound of pages being turned
] you'd been having arguments.

EILEEN DOW:
I
wasn't happy. Chloe was all right. They love it at that age. The arguments.

DI SINGH:
Did you argue a lot?

EILEEN DOW:
Yes. No more than usual. She could try my patience.

DI SINGH:
What were the arguments about?

EILEEN DOW:
Nothing much. The usual. Staying out late. Not telling us where she was.

DI SINGH:
Boys?

EILEEN DOW:
She didn't have any trouble with boys, no. Girls, yes. Boys, no.

DI SINGH:
She had arguments with her girlfriends?

EILEEN DOW:
You know what girls are like. [
Silence
] Perhaps you don't. Bitches. Bitchy to Chloe, anyway.

DI SINGH:
In what way?

EILEEN DOW:
Gossip. Lies. All the backbiting that goes on. She had stuff stolen, I know that. From her locker at school.

DI SINGH:
Who were these girls?

EILEEN DOW:
Ask her teacher. They know. I tried not to get involved. Jessica Walker was the worst. Two-faced little cow.

DI SINGH
[
sound of writing
]
:
I see. To come back to boys for a second: did she have a boyfriend?

EILEEN DOW
. No. She used to. Alex something. It wasn't serious, not for her. She had other boyfriends, before that. She was always popular, with boys. I don't remember them. Garvie Smith I remember. He's nice, Garvie. A real charmer.

DI SINGH:
That's ... interesting. [
Sound of writing
] But Alex ... Had he been bothering Chloe?

EILEEN DOW:
No. I don't think so. A bit, maybe. He was upset. I suppose they argued. I don't know. I didn't involve myself.

DI SINGH:
Did Chloe argue with her stepfather?

EILEEN DOW:
... Not really.

DI SINGH:
No?

EILEEN DOW:
Well, yes. But ...

DI SINGH:
They
did
argue?

EILEEN DOW:
No, but ... They never really ...

DI SINGH:
Did they or didn't they argue?

EILEEN DOW
[
angrily
]
:
It hardly matters now, does it? It doesn't make any bloody difference now, does it? [
Sound of sobbing
]

DI SINGH:
I don't want to upset you, but it will help if—

EILEEN DOW:
She was jealous. If you must know.

DI SINGH:
Jealous?

EILEEN DOW:
Jealous of me. Ever since Mick and I married. I suppose she thought I didn't give her as much attention. Or something. Actually, she was jealous of me being happy. That's the truth.

DI SINGH:
Was Mr Dow aware of this? Did it upset him?

EILEEN DOW:
He doesn't get upset. He's very fair. He was always the peace-maker when ... [
Sound of sobbing
] I just keep asking myself why. You know.
Why?
[
Sound of nose-blowing
]. What have I done to deserve this? I know you're not going to give me any answers. I know that. There aren't any bloody answers. You don't even—

Singh leaned forward abruptly and turned off the tape recorder with a click, and sat upright in his chair, in the sudden silence of the bare room. The interview studio was oppressive, a small white box harshly lit with electric light. It didn't bother Singh. He'd been there since concluding the interviews two hours earlier. He sat gazing expressionlessly at the wall.

After a while he opened his notebook and wrote:

Father, motorcycle accident, 2002. Mrs D, medication? Stress-related, check records. Remarriage ‘saved her'. Arguments with C?

He sat motionless for a while longer. Then he wrote:

Manual. Big picture made up of little details.

Again he reflected. Finally, he wrote:

They are five. Kaam. Krodh. Lobh. Moh. Ahankar.
And he carefully underlined
Ahankar
– egotism – the last and most prevalent of the five evils of the Sikh faith.

Pausing only to glance at his watch, he removed the tape from the old-fashioned police-issue recorder, and replaced it with another. He pressed Fast Forward, and listened, and pressed Fast Forward again.

For much of the interview Michael Dow had simply corroborated the events of Friday. Most of the day he had been working at a renovated council property on The Oval at Dandelion Hill. The carpenter and electrician who had been with him left at four o'clock, and he stayed on till five forty-five to finish a stretch of painting before driving to the Centre to meet his wife, as she had said. But his most interesting comments had come near the end of the interview.

Singh found the right place and pressed Play.

DI SINGH:
Finally I'd like to ask you some general questions about Chloe, if I may.

[
Silence
]

DI SINGH:
Is that all right?

MICHAEL DOW:
It'll have to be, won't it?

DI SINGH:
How would you describe your relationship with Chloe?

MICHAEL DOW
[
silence
]
:
Not great.

DI SINGH:
Not great how?

MICHAEL DOW:
It was hard for her, me moving in. Hard for me too. But she didn't like it. Too used to having her own way. [
Silence
] She didn't like me.

DI SINGH:
Did you like her?

MICHAEL DOW:
I thought she'd been spoiled. I told her so. She didn't like that, either.

DI SINGH:
Did you argue?

MICHAEL DOW:
No. She wanted to argue with her mum. I only got involved calming things down.

DI SINGH:
You must have found it difficult.

MICHAEL DOW:
Not as difficult as this. [
Silence
] She was only a kid.

DI SINGH:
Yes. [
Silence
] I realize you're angry, that's only natural.

MICHAEL DOW:
A bloody
kid
!

DI SINGH
[
pause
]
:
I understand Chloe had problems with girlfriends.

MICHAEL DOW:
No.

DI SINGH:
Oh. Mrs Dow thought there had been instances of abuse, theft.

MICHAEL DOW:
Nothing much.

DI SINGH:
I see. What about boys, then? Did she have trouble with boys?

MICHAEL DOW:
Yes.

DI SINGH:
What sort of trouble?

MICHAEL DOW:
A girl like that. What sort of trouble do you think she had?

DI SINGH:
Harassment? Sexual harassment?

MICHAEL DOW:
Half the bloody school were harassing her.