Rather to Be Pitied

by Jan Newton

  ‘But instead you took the boy and ran away with him yourself, isn’t that right? You see a boy in possible mortal danger, and you would desperately love to have a child.’ Julie’s question was delivered sharply and Swift raised an eyebrow.

  Two pale patches of pink began to rise in Lizzie’s cheeks. When the answer came, it was clear that Lizzie had far more fight in her than Julie had thought.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, I did think the boy’s life might be in danger. I saw how badly poor Rosa was treated, terrified of that bullying bastard of a man and yes, the one thing I want in the world is a child of my own to love and to nurture.’ She thumped the table with her fist, but only gently, and it was clear to Julie that she was controlling her fury, but only with the greatest amount of effort.

  ‘So did you run away with Sean? Did you take him away from his mother?’ Julie’s voice was softer now. ‘Did you rescue him?’

  Lizzie nodded. ‘Although I wasn’t brave enough to actually take the initiative myself. I had thought about it, believe me, but it wasn’t until Rosa arrived on my doorstep holding Sean’s hand one afternoon and begged me to take him away that I decided I really had to do it.’

  ‘What tipped the balance? Why did you decide on that day that you would leave your husband and run away with a neighbour’s child?’ Swift asked.

  ‘Rosa said Quigley had just arranged to have one of his dealers disposed of. She heard him making arrangements on the phone, as casually as ordering a takeaway pizza.’ Lizzie looked up at Swift. ‘He was going to be executed, shot by a hitman. You can’t imagine the state Rosa was in. This was a whole new level of violence. I asked her why she didn’t take Sean herself and just go, but she said Sean would be harder to find if she wasn’t with him, that nobody would be looking for me, but if she were to run, she would be found in no time. Quigley has contacts in all sorts of places you wouldn’t even imagine and he controlled every aspect of her life.’

  ‘So you just decided to leave home and take Sean with you?’ Julie asked.

  ‘We planned it, Rosa and me. We had to make sure John and Quigley didn’t suspect anything. John can be horribly naïve about some things, even for a solicitor. If he’d been party to the plans and Quigley threatened him, well, who knows what he would have done, or said. It could have ruined everything.’

  ‘It sounds as though you have a fair idea.’ Julie smiled. ‘But then John would only have been thinking about your safety, surely.’

  ‘I know,’ Lizzie conceded. ‘But he doesn’t believe how evil Quigley is. Not really.’

  ‘So where is the boy now?’ Swift asked.

  Lizzie shrugged.

  ‘You’re not telling me you don’t know where Sean is,’ Julie leaned forward until her face was only inches from Lizzie’s. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘He’s safe. That’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘All you can tell us, or all you’re prepared to tell us?’

  ‘If there’s any chance at all that Quigley is looking for Sean, if he has any idea that Sean is in this area, then I can’t take the risk of letting people know where he is.’

  ‘We’re not people though are we, Lizzie, we’re the police.’ Swift still sounded like a concerned uncle and Julie was irritated but she stayed quiet. ‘We can help protect Sean from Quigley. We can protect you too, if you’ll let us,’ Swift said.

  ‘What would he do to you, Lizzie, if he found out you’d kidnapped his son?’ Julie asked.

  ‘He’s capable of anything.’

  ‘Capable of murdering Rosa?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have thought twice about it.’ Lizzie stared at Julie. ‘So you really think Rosa might have been murdered. You think it could have been her body out there on the path?’

  ‘We were hoping you would be able to tell us whether it might be Rosa. I assume you’d you been in contact with her recently, kept her in touch with how her son was doing during his exile.’

  If Lizzie heard the judgemental tone in Julie’s question she didn’t react. ‘I haven’t spoken to Rosa for months.’

  ‘But you’re convinced that Quigley could have murdered Rosa, even all this way from home?’

  Lizzie shrugged. ‘If I thought for a minute that Quigley knew where she was, then I’d say it was definite.’

  ‘What makes you think he didn’t know?’

  ‘We were very careful. There’s no way he could have worked it out for himself.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and Rosa.’

  ‘So Rosa knew where Sean was then?’

  ‘Of course she did. But nobody else did, nobody at all.’

  Julie raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re wrong, Lizzie. Rosa’s brother, Ardal, managed to work it out. From an address on the back of an envelope which we assume was presumably sent by you and addressed to Rosa. He found this address in a bin in her kitchen.’

  Lizzie’s eyes widened and her mouth contorted into the strangest shape. She reminded Julie of a painting she’d seen on Adam’s computer. He said that’s how he always felt on the first morning of term.

  ‘No, no, no-no-no.’ It started quietly, barely audible, but Lizzie almost screamed the last repetition. ‘Please tell me you’re lying. He can’t know where Sean is. He can’t have been there.’

  ‘So Sean is at the cottage?’ Julie asked.

  Lizzie put her head in her hands and began rocking gently. ‘No. He can’t have been there. He can’t. I won’t believe it.’

  Swift waited until Lizzie was still. ‘Where is the boy?’

  She sat bolt upright then and stared at the wall above Swift’s head. ‘I want a solicitor. I’m not prepared to say anything else until I’ve seen a solicitor.’

  ‘What about your husband,’ Julie asked. ‘Do you want to see him?’

  Lizzie nodded. ‘Do you think he will want to see me?’ she said, through sobs which rocked her slender frame.

  It took John Slaithwaite less than three hours to reach his wife. He must have broken every speed limit between Blackpool and Boughrood. When Julie went to meet him in reception, Brian Hughes beckoned her over to the desk.

  ‘He’s absolutely beside himself, Julie. It might be an idea to take him for a cuppa or something and see if you can calm him down before he sees her.’

  Julie nodded. ‘Will do. Thanks, Brian. Has he said anything?’

  ‘Nothing other than asking for his wife. You can feel the tension from here, poor bugger.’

  Julie approached Slaithwaite, who immediately grabbed her by the arm. Brian Hughes started to run round the counter, but Julie shook her head and he retreated.

  ‘Let’s just calm down, Mr Slaithwaite. You don’t want your wife to see you in this state, do you? She needs you to be strong, to give her as much support as you can.’

  Slaithwaite let go of Julie as though she was suddenly on fire. ‘God, I’m so sorry. I can’t think what I was doing.’

  ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. This must all be very surreal for you. We’ve just got the doctor in with her now, to give her the once over, but you can see her in a few minutes. Can I get you a coffee? I’m afraid we don’t run to whisky in the canteen.’

  Slaithwaite managed a small smile which made him look as though he was curling his lip. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She’s fine. She’s just a bit stressed out.’

  Slaithwaite laughed. ‘God, I know that feeling.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Yes please, coffee would be perfect.’

  Nerys could always be relied upon to cheer anyone up. Julie was even more grateful than usual today for her sunny, no-nonsense delivery.

  ‘There you are, lovely. You look as though you could do with something a bit stronger, you do. But don’t worry, our Sergeant Kite here will look after you.’ She passed Slaithwaite a mug of frothy coffee and pushed a black coffee towards Julie. ‘Bet you could do with this too.’

  Julie led him to her usual table, in the far corner of the canteen, away from the raucous jokes and laughter.

/>   ‘Thank you, Sergeant. I was in a bit of a state back there.’

  ‘I know you were. It’s hard when you’re a long way from where you need to be in circumstances like this. But she’s fine. Lizzie’s going to be fine.’

  ‘But are you sure she’ll see me?’

  ‘She asked for you.’

  ‘I won’t be much use to her though, will I?’

  ‘You’re a solicitor, you’ll be a great help.’ Julie smiled. ‘But not in the interview, of course.’

  Slaithwaite gave a little half-smile. ‘Not unless she wants to buy a house, I won’t. I specialise in conveyancing.’

  ‘Well, she needs a friend, and you qualify in that department.’ Julie sipped her coffee and could feel the caffeine making its way to the vital places.

  ‘Will she be charged with anything?’

  ‘It’s still way too early to be thinking about that. This case is getting more complicated by the minute. But so far, if what she’s telling us is true, then she might be all right.’

  ‘At least I know she’s safe. That’s the main thing.’ Slaithwaite pulled the froth on his coffee into little peaks with his teaspoon. ‘I thought she might have been… that something awful could have happened to her.’

  That, thought Julie, had probably been a lot more likely than even Slaithwaite was thinking right now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Day Six

  ‘She was adamant,’ Swift said, and poked at the waste bin with his toe. Rhys was bringing the board up to date with his painstaking colour-coded notes. Morgan Evans seemed, finally, to have engaged with the case. Julie watched them all interact and wondered still, what she was missing. There was definitely a link that was eluding her. What the hell was it? She sighed and forced herself to concentrate on Swift’s final meeting of the day.

  ‘Maybe Lizzie’s telling the truth.’ Rhys stopped writing and turned to Swift. ‘Maybe the little boy was never at the house in the Elan Valley at all. She could have spirited him away from Blackpool and taken him somewhere else entirely. He might not even be here now.’

  ‘Good point.’ Swift knocked the bin over and climbed wearily from the desk to pick it up. ‘Or he could have been at the cottage but isn’t any longer, now she knows we know about Sean.’

  ‘But she must have had an accomplice, surely.’ Julie said. ‘I was convinced there was someone else in the house when I went up there the first time. I could swear she wasn’t on her own. She even kept the door closed, whereas the second time she seemed extremely keen for me to see that there was nobody there.’

  ‘Did you ask her about Rosa again, after she’d seen her husband?’ Goronwy asked. ‘Was she any more cooperative then?’

  ‘No.’ Swift tugged his ear. ‘She really is frightened of this Jason Quigley character. He sounds like a total shit.’

  Julie’s eyebrows disappeared into her fringe. She’d never heard the boss be quite so forthright about anyone. Well, apart from the creep from hell, Stephen Collins. She shivered. Thank God that one was safely under lock and key.

  ‘So where are we up to, then?’ Morgan sauntered over to stand by Julie. ‘We know Lizzie Slaithwaite took the child from Blackpool and probably to the house in the Elan Valley. We know that Jason Quigley is a total headbanging nutter and that Rosa was terrified of him. We don’t know where he is, and we don’t know where the child is, but we can hope the two aren’t in the same place.’

  ‘So far you’re spot on.’ Julie smiled. ‘And then there’s the little matter of what happened to Rosa Quigley. Was she murdered or was it an accident?’

  ‘Ah,’ Goronwy peered over the top of his laptop in the corner of the office. ‘Did I not tell you?’

  ‘Tell us what, boyo?’ Rhys instinctively reached for his red marker.

  ‘The doc phoned this morning. She says the body was definitely moved post mortem, hundred percent. She says there’s a very very small chance it could have been an accident, the actual death, like, but in that case someone still knew about it and they didn’t tell us, did they? And she thinks it’s more likely, from the pattern of splintering of the fragment of skull into the brain, that Rosa was battered very hard with something very solid, and at least twice.’

  ‘Which makes it nigh on impossible for it to have been done in a fall.’ Swift sighed. ‘So we need to know where it happened and how she ended up where she did.’

  ‘There’s more, Sir.’ Goronwy was enjoying being the bearer of important news for once. ‘The results of the samples taken from Mal’s quad show that it’s likely it was used to transport Rosa to where she was found. There are soil traces on the tyres, which don’t match his farmland, but do match the soil around the Monks’ Trod. And there are traces of exactly the same chemicals that were found on Rosa’s hair all over the bike. Creosote, oil, you name it. The doc says it’s as good as a fingerprint. Which is just as well, because we don’t have any of those so far.’

  ‘But those chemicals would be found on any number of quads in the area. Are there any traces of blood or fibre we can track to the body?’ Swift asked.

  ‘No, Sir. Not a thing. Doctor Greenhalgh says it’s quite likely that she was wrapped in something that prevented the transfer of evidence from the body to the bike.’

  ‘And that exchange principle, Morgan, is known as what?’ Swift asked. ‘Seeing as you’re gearing up for your Sergeants’ Exam again.’

  Morgan looked like a rabbit in headlights and Julie could see from his expression the exact moment the relevant information slotted into place. ‘It’s Locard’s principle, Sir. Every contact leaves a trace.’

  ‘Correct, Morgan. Unless, that is, the person you’re trying to implicate is one step ahead.’

  Swift wandered over to Goronwy’s desk and looked over the younger officer’s shoulder at the computer screen. ‘They haven’t found any sign of anything at the farm that could have been used to wrap up the body, have they?’

  ‘No, Sir. They did say they’d need several years and a following wind to go through everything in that shed though.’

  ‘Well that’s a bit of a relief in one way,’ Swift said.

  ‘But what about the bag, the one Mal said he’d lost?’ Julie said.

  ‘You don’t think it could be them, surely?’ Rhys stared at Julie.

  ‘No, I know there’s no way it was Mal or Sarah. Besides, they wouldn’t have told us about the quad being moved if they’d used it themselves to move the body, would they?’

  ‘That is also a good point, Julie,’ Swift said.

  ‘The obvious candidate for using the bike would be Lizzie, though, wouldn’t it? She was right on the doorstep and she would know that there was a quad down there in the shed. They don’t lock the shed do they?’ Julie asked.

  ‘They don’t lock anything at all, car, house, quad. They never go anywhere apart from down to Rhayader for a bit of shopping or to the market. They’ll have left the keys in the quad. I bet if you went up there now the keys would be in the ignition of both that and the truck.’ Swift took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘So Lizzie could have borrowed the quad.’ Morgan Evans gazed at her photograph on the board. ‘But she doesn’t look the type to smack someone on the head and calmly remove the body.’

  ‘Ah, but wouldn’t it make our life boring if you could just look at someone and know what they were capable of,’ Swift said.

  ‘To be fair to Morgan, I know what he means. I can’t see it either.’ Morgan Evans flashed a small smile in Julie’s direction.

  ‘Besides,’ Julie continued, ‘if it was Lizzie, and the deed happened up at the cottage, then how did she get the body all that way down to Mal’s yard on her own?’

  ‘There was nothing of Rosa, though, was there?’ Goronwy said. He paged through the information on his computer. ‘It says in the post mortem report that she weighed just over forty kilos.’

  ‘And what’s that in stones and pounds?’ Swift said. ‘For those of us who went to school in the o
lden days.’

  ‘It’s about six stone four,’ Julie said. ‘Give or take.’ She examined the contours on the map that Rhys had just stuck to the board. ‘I’d say it’s still too heavy for Lizzie to carry her all that way, especially given the slope on that land and two really awkward gates. It’s a fair way down to the yard and she’s not exactly huge herself.’

  ‘What are we doing with Lizzie? Can we keep hold of her on kidnap charges?’ Morgan asked.

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to work,’ Swift said. ‘We need to get all our ducks in a row before we start talking of arrests. I’ve been on to the magistrates for an urgent warrant to search Pwll Bach, and I’ve asked that the Slaithwaites both stay in town for a day or two, while we give the cottage a going over and to keep an eye on her, just in case Quigley might be looking for her. The husband’s keen to get her back home, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen any time soon.’

  ‘So where are we up to then, Sir?’ Rhys asked, his pen still poised.

  ‘So, we’re back to square one, looking for Rosa’s killer,’ Swift said. ‘But at least we’re almost certain it is a killer we’re looking for.’