Rather to Be Pitied

by Jan Newton

‘Would you accept a lucky guess?’ Julie shrugged. ‘It seems as though Caroline was calling herself Rosa Quigley, although we haven’t found any record of their marriage. Were they married?’

  ‘To be honest, I’ve absolutely no idea. She didn’t mention it when I saw her.’

  ‘Would she have told you?’

  ‘She’d have told me if she thought it would have upset Mum and Dad, so maybe they weren’t married.’

  ‘It must be difficult for you, and for your parents.’ Julie got up and walked over to where Ardal was spooning coffee into a cafétière, so she could see his reaction in close-up. ‘But you found her, didn’t you? You know where she was.’

  Ardal shook his head. ‘I wasn’t looking for her. I thought she would still be in Blackpool somewhere, just staying out of the way, keeping her head down. I never thought for a minute that –.’ He sniffed, cleared his throat and splashed boiling water onto the ground coffee. ‘I had no idea what had happened to her. I was looking for her little boy.’

  Julie frowned. ‘So you were in Wales looking for Caroline’s child?

  Ardal nodded. ‘Sean. His name’s Sean.’

  ‘Why did you think he might be there? Did Caroline tell you she knew where he was?’

  Ardal pulled a piece of kitchen roll from the dispenser and blew his nose. ‘I hadn’t spoken to Caro for months. She told me before Christmas that Sean had gone away, but she didn’t know where he was. The next time I saw her was in March, but that was only by sitting in my car outside her house in Blackpool for three days and nights until she couldn’t avoid me any longer. She’d made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with the family, me included, that she didn’t want finding or bringing home but that she was happy that Sean was safe.’

  ‘Did she know where he was?’

  ‘I got the impression that she didn’t.’

  ‘And your parents know where Caro was?’

  Ardal sighed and shook his head. ‘She made me promise not to tell them that I’d found her.’

  ‘Had they fallen out about the baby?’

  ‘It all went very wrong way before that. She met Quigley while she was still at school. He was working at the Pleasure Beach in Blackpool, Jack the Lad on one of the rides. Caro was there on a day out with friends from school. She thought he was exciting and dangerous. Turns out he was just dangerous and an utter bastard to boot.’ Ardal stirred the coffee and flung the spoon into the sink.

  ‘So how did you know the boy might be in Wales?’ Julie accepted the proffered cup and declined milk.

  Ardal hesitated. ‘I don’t want to get involved with the whys and wherefores.’

  ‘Or the boyfriend?’

  ‘Definitely not with him. And he’s seriously into drugs, for what it’s worth.’ He gripped the edge of the work surface, whether for support or to control his temper, Julie couldn’t tell, but his face was as white as his knuckles when he looked up. ‘I just want to keep Sean away from him. If he went the same way as Caro with the drugs I’d never forgive myself.’

  ‘So when did you come back north?’

  ‘Friday last week. I set off from there at dawn. I had to sort out a job for a client in Ribchester.’ Ardal looked up at her suddenly. ‘You’re going to tell me she was already dead up in those blasted hills, while I was searching for Sean, aren’t you?’

  Julie shook her head. ‘We don’t think so.’

  Ardal closed his eyes. ‘I could have stopped this happening to her. If I’d found her, she might still be alive.’

  ‘Mr Harding, how did you get back from Wales to Preston?’

  ‘I’m being accused of something here, am I?’

  ‘Not at all, but we have to cover every possible combination of facts.’

  ‘I’ve never heard it described like that before.’

  ‘So how did you get back here? We believe you didn’t have a vehicle with you when you were in Wales.’

  Ardal looked at her. ‘No I didn’t. My vehicle has my name plastered across both sides. I didn’t think it would be helpful when I was trying to keep a low profile. I got the train from Llandrindod Wells, changed at Crewe and a mate picked me up from Preston Station.’

  ‘Do you still have the ticket?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t realise it would come in useful.’

  ‘Could you check?’

  Ardal scowled but left her sitting there and ran upstairs. He came back triumphantly clutching two tickets. ‘It’s been clipped too, look,’ he said, thrusting the tickets under Julie’s nose. ‘So whatever you were thinking, you were barking up the wrong tree, weren’t you?’

  Julie busied herself with her notebook, and eventually Ardal sat facing her across the counter. ‘How did you know Sean was in Wales, Ardal?’

  He gave a mirthless half smile and looked up at her. ‘You’ll think I’m a control freak, but I was only trying to help Caro. She couldn’t think straight half the time and I thought if I could get Sean back, bring him here, then she might come home.’ His words petered out and he sighed again.

  ‘And you’re sure Caro didn’t tell you where Sean was? Could she have taken him to Wales herself?’

  ‘I don’t know the ins and outs. All I know is he was up there somewhere, and it definitely wasn’t Caro who took him. I’d worked out he was somewhere near Rhayader, but that was all. I didn’t find him.’

  ‘So she didn’t tell you where he was?’

  Ardal looked down and picked at a fleck of mica deep within the worktop. ‘No she didn’t. But I only did it for her and for Sean. I wasn’t really breaking the law. Not really.’

  ‘What did you do, Ardal? Tell me.’

  He didn’t look at her, just continued to circle the glittery mineral in the granite. ‘I broke into her house in Blackpool. I’d been trying to find him since November and she wasn’t telling me anything. So I waited until Caro and the lunatic were both out and went looking for clues.’

  ‘And did you find any?’

  ‘I found a few addresses that might have been possibles. I started with the local ones and worked my way south.’

  ‘How have you got the time to do all this sleuthing?’ Julie asked. She realised it was the wrong word as soon as she’d said it. Ardal recovered his colour immediately in response. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean anything, it was just… Where do you work?’

  ‘I’m a landscape gardener, freelance. So I’ve been able to take time away from it.’

  ‘But this must be your busiest time? Aren’t you losing money?’

  ‘And clients, but this is too important. I’ll just have to work a bit harder once I’ve found him, won’t I? As soon as I’ve pacified the old dear in Ribchester I’ll be back in Wales.’

  ‘What happened to your tent?’ Julie asked. ‘The blue tent you had at the campsite in Rhayader.’

  ‘Nothing happened to it, it’s here in the garage.’

  ‘But when you went to stay with the army lads and the marauding alpacas, they said you hadn’t got anywhere to stay.’

  ‘You don’t miss anything do you, Sergeant. I just needed to be up there, in that valley. I was tired of the jollity of the campsite, of people on holiday. One day, I thought I’d seen a woman with a child who looked like Sean up above the reservoirs, but she vanished before I could get to her. I spent hours walking the hills up there and then I met one of the lads out on the hill and we got talking. He invited me to go and stay at their place for a couple of nights. Was it one of them who did the drawing of me?’

  Julie nodded. ‘He said you were desperate to find the little boy. I think he really thought it must have been your own son you were looking for.’

  ‘If we find him, then I’ll find a way of adopting him. I’ve got to keep him safe from his lunatic father.’

  ‘So you’re sure Quigley is Sean’s father?’

  ‘He has to be. They’ve been together for years. From the very little she told me about him, he’d never have let her look at anyone else.’

  ‘Ardal, w
e might be able to help you find Sean. If you could give me more details about Caro’s home life and what might have happened to Sean, then we can take it from there.’

  Ardal got down from the stool and walked over to the sink. He stood with his back to her. ‘I’ve given you all the clues I can.’

  Julie put her mug in the sink and stood next to him.

  ‘Ardal, you were here this morning when your parents left to identify the body?’

  Ardal nodded slowly, his face crumpling as the reality of what Julie was saying sank in. ‘You really think it’s her, don’t you? But you could be wrong, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Is there anyone who you want to be with you? Can I phone them for you?’

  ‘Just tell me.’ Ardal’s eyes flashed, anger suddenly mixed with despair.

  Julie automatically went into formal mode. ‘The body of a young woman was found in the Elan Valley and we have reason to believe that it is the body of your sister, Caroline Harding, also known as Rosa Quigley.’ Julie sighed. ‘Ardal, we’re 99% certain that it is Caro.’

  He turned to look at her, and it was all she could do not to put her arms round him and give him a huge hug. He looked like a little boy himself, despite the muscular, sun-tanned frame.

  ‘Ardal, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. We will do everything we can to find Sean, but we haven’t found him and we need more help. What was the address you were looking for in Powys?’

  Ardal sniffed and wiped his eyes with the cuff of his sweater. ‘I don’t have the address, just a fragment I found in the bin at Caro’s. The house name is B-a-c-h and the town is Rhayader, but that’s all there was. It was a return address on the back of an envelope, but it was smudged.’ He managed a small smile. ‘It was under one of her girly teabags, rose hip or something. The ink had run, and there was a chunk missing where the envelope had been opened.’

  ‘And you found this fragment of an address when you broke into the house and found the other addresses?’

  From the way Ardal looked at her, Julie knew there was more to come.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘So you’ve been there more than once?’

  Ardal nodded.

  ‘And this fragment with the Rhayader address on it. When did you find that, Ardal?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know the exact date.’

  ‘You’re not making this easy, Ardal. When did you find the address in Wales?’

  ‘Two, maybe three weeks ago.’

  ‘You’ve been making yourself quite at home in Blackpool then?’

  ‘I only went twice, I swear. What would you have done, Sergeant, if your sister had been in trouble?’ His face showed true anguish, and Julie was sorry for her glib comment.

  She handed him her card. ‘Look, I know you’re worried, and this isn’t the time, not today, but will you call me soon? We can discuss whether you’d like us to bring charges against Caro’s husband or boyfriend or whatever he is, for anything at all. It may help us to locate him.’

  ‘What sort of charges?’

  Julie hesitated, but then said, ‘Did you know she had coeliac disease, Ardal?’ She could see something in his eyes, until he closed them against her.

  ‘I knew there was something. All through school she kept saying there was something wrong with her, that she had stomach pains most of the time. She decided milk didn’t agree with her, so everything had to be dairy-free. Mum wasn’t best pleased.’ He smiled then and she was struck with the blueness of his eyes. The waitress in Rhayader had been right. ‘I don’t know if this has anything to do with it or whether it was just hormones, but she had an absolutely evil temper sometimes, too. That’s why the GP put her on anti-depressants.’

  ‘How old was she when that happened?’

  ‘She was doing her GCSEs. The doctor said it was probably the stress of the exams and being a teenage girl. It was meant to be temporary, just until she’d finished the exams.’

  ‘But it wasn’t temporary?’

  Ardal shook his head. ‘She started losing weight, shedloads of it, and she needed more and more of the tablets.’ He shook his head. ‘Dad thought she was just after attention, but she wasn’t, was she? Oh, Caro, you poor little bugger.’ He was crying now, not even bothering to hide his tears. ‘How did you know she had coeliac disease?’

  Julie hesitated. ‘From our investigations after she was found.’

  The truth dawned and Ardal’s whole frame shuddered with a sob. ‘You mean a post mortem, don’t you?’

  Julie nodded and Ardal swallowed hard.

  ‘And why would you be able to charge Quigley with anything relating to that?’

  ‘Well,’ Julie paused.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well perhaps we should wait for the inquest, when everything has been finalised. You might not need to know all this.’

  ‘Just tell me, Sergeant. Please.’

  Julie wondered what Swift would do in this situation. She hoped she was right as she cleared her throat and read from her notes. ‘Coeliac disease causes poor absorption of vitamins and minerals, and if it’s not spotted early enough it can lead to osteoporosis, making the bones more liable to breakage.’ She looked up at his face, which had begun to crumple as though he was six years old and had grazed his knee. ‘We have absolutely no information about whether Quigley was involved, but you have confirmed that their relationship might not have been entirely amicable. There were several fractures on her body and…’

  Defying protocol again, she held him while huge man-sobs rocked his whole body.

  Slowly, Ardal became quiet and Julie stepped away, awkward now.

  ‘I’d like you to go to the local police station today and make a statement to them, as soon as you can. Everything you’ve told me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re a key witness to Rosa’s life and her disappearance. We need to have it all in writing. I can take you there now.’

  ‘There’s no need. I’ll go as soon as you leave.’

  ‘I will check.’

  Ardal nodded. ‘I won’t be running away anywhere, Sergeant. All I want to do now is make sure that Sean is safe.’ He stared at the worktop and back up at her. ‘Although I won’t be responsible for my actions if I do see Quigley.’

  ‘In that case, unless you let me take you into Preston police station myself, right now, to make your statement, I’ll have to arrest you.’

  Ardal shook his head. ‘You people,’ he said. ‘You really are the lowest of the low.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Day Five

  The unmistakable shape of Blackpool Tower dominated the skyline for miles. Julie smiled at her first glimpse of it. It might not be as stylish as the Eiffel Tower, but it was definitely a lot more fun. A gang of the girls from work had been to a tea dance in the Tower Ballroom once; afternoon tea with long frocks and the Wurlitzer, all beneath crystal chandeliers and acres of gilt and red velvet. Where would you go for a tea dance in Wales, she wondered. There was plenty of line dancing, though. Maybe she could get a gang from work to go for a night out. Nerys in the canteen would definitely be up for it, and Maggie from IT could always be persuaded, but what about the others? She could always ask, couldn’t she?

  She parked on a side street behind the Pleasure Beach. Even today, before the school holidays had begun, there were shrieks and screams from The Big One and Revolution, Avalanche and the Big Dipper. Helen had been a nightmare on The Big One. The others put it down to a dodgy burger, but Julie knew Helen was still horribly hung over from the night before. It was a wonder she’d lived to be thirty-two at all, the way she looked after herself. She laughed out loud as she locked the car. God, was she turning into a vegan, triathlete history teacher by association?

  Eighth Avenue was just as Goronwy had said, very respectable and also surprisingly quiet, considering its location. Rosa’s house was the left hand half of a semi-detached house, red brick and bow-windowed with pale stone windowsills and a little arch picked
out in white over the stained glass front door. Julie checked the address. If this was Quigley’s property, he didn’t bring his work home. The right hand house was identical, even down to the vertical blinds. A hanging basket was placed centrally between the two bay windows. They must have got on then, Rosa, Quigley and the neighbours, Julie thought. No dispute over the placing of the bracket. She’d seen wars over less.

  There was no reply to Julie’s knock on Quigley’s front door. She peered through the letterbox, but could see nothing out of the ordinary in the hallway. She had that feeling, as though the house was holding its breath, that there could be someone inside, but nobody showed themselves. She checked the untidy back garden and looked through the grimy windows of the shed. There was nothing out of the ordinary in there, just a battered lawnmower and a shrivelled paddling pool, the odd paint can, a couple of tatty deckchairs.