by Penny Kline
He was dressed in a dark suit, with a white shirt and a navy blue tie, and he was holding a stack of papers in his hand as though he was in the middle of sorting out a filing cabinet or collecting up notes before he left for an assignment. He still looked like a policeman but lately there had been something different about him. He was quieter, more relaxed.
‘Working on a case?’ Karen ran her finger along a dust-free shelf. ‘It’s funny, you’re much tidier than Mum. Of course Alex does most of the cleaning now. The New Man. What a nerd.’
Her father’s eyebrows moved a little but he said nothing. He was sitting on the edge of his desk, waiting for her to tell him the reason for her visit. Lack of money? A complaint about her mother?
‘I haven’t come on the scrounge,’ she said, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Good.’
‘Yes, I thought you’d be relieved.’
‘No. Just pleased it’s a purely social call.’
‘Really?’ It was so unlike him to show his feelings. Not that he had ever been cold or aloof, just not the kind of person who splurges their emotions all over the place.
‘D’you remember the Natalie Stevens case?’ she said. ‘The only reason I ask, Alex says Natalie’s sister works at the Arts Centre. It must be awful for her knowing the murderer’s still at large and the police aren’t doing anything to find him.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. As far as I know they have no immediate leads, but the case is still open and will remain that way for a while.’
‘Where does the sister live? I mean where do her parents live? Or I suppose she could be married or something.’
He stood up and closed the window. ‘As I remember the parents live in Burnham Close, up near the golf course.’
‘Those big detached houses with enormous gardens?’
‘No, there’s a new development, well, fairly new. I’ve no idea if the sister lives with them.’
‘What about Natalie Stevens’ boyfriend? Liam Pearce. D’you know what he’s like? And the baby? I feel really sorry for Mrs Pearce. Imagine having to look after your son’s girlfriend’s baby. I don’t think that’s fair, do you?’
‘What a lot of questions! He’s her grandson.’ He opened a desk drawer then closed it again. ‘No, from what I’ve heard Olive Pearce is a bitter creature who feels very hard done by. Not that anyone could blame her. First she nursed her invalid husband, then she had to start all over again caring for someone else’s baby.’
‘Thanks, Dad, just what I need to know.’
‘Why this morbid interest in a case that went cold months ago?’ Her father was halfway through the door. ‘Coffee?’
‘What?’ Karen thought fast. ‘Oh, I just thought I might write a piece for the local paper.’
Her father’s face broke into a grin. ‘Karen Cady, ace reporter? Not such a bad idea. The Pearce family live in Arkwright Way. All these people, they’ll be in the phone book, only watch your step, you don’t want to cause any trouble.’
‘Yes. I mean, no. Just thought I could try my hand at a bit of journalism. Unsolved crimes, that kind of stuff.’
They were in the tiny kitchen, where everything had been stacked neatly on shelves or on the draining board. No unwashed plates or dirty cutlery. No half-eaten packets of biscuits, old apple cores, remains of previous meals.
Karen stood in the doorway, chewing the edge of her thumb nail. ‘D’you like living on your own, Dad?’
‘What?’ He turned round sharply. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. Has its compensations though, has its compensations.’
*
Simon had arranged to meet her at four-thirty. Karen saw him waiting by the drinks machine, fiddling with the ring pull on a can of coke.
‘What have you done this time?’ She took the can from his hand. ‘These things are virtually fool-proof. How come someone who’s such a genius with computers is so useless with simple everyday objects?’
He shrugged. His long straggly hair had fallen over one eye. The pocket on his shirt was coming unstitched and his trousers had shiny grass-stained knees. He towered above her but Karen doubted if he weighed half a stone more than she did, and no-one had ever called her overweight.
‘Where are we going?’ She dropped the can in a plastic bin and pushed open the swing door that led to the staff car park. ‘How about a walk along the river? We could go past the Sports Centre then come back along Arkwright Way.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘Suit yourself, that’s where I’m going.’
If he had come up with a better suggestion she might have given up her plan, but as usual he had no bright ideas as to how they could spend the rest of the afternoon, just expected her to make the decision for him.
‘I suppose you found it hard to drag yourself away from your computer,’ she said, squeezing his arm to make up for all the criticisms of him that kept jumping into her mind. ‘D’you still use the one you’ve got at home?’
‘Yes, but it’s not really powerful enough to . . .’ He broke off, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘The river it is then. Actually I wanted to ask you something. No, I’ll tell you later, after we’ve passed the Sports Centre.’
‘What’s so special about the Sports Centre?’
‘Nothing.’
They crossed the main road, then used the underpass that ran beneath part of the roundabout and came out near the track leading down to the river.
Simon never said much but today he was even more silent than usual. Whatever he was going to ask her it had to be something personal. Anything else he would have come out with right away. This was something that was making him anxious. Karen felt a twinge of guilt, wondering if she had gone too far, taking him for granted, teasing him about his appearance.
Walking a few yards ahead of her he turned his head and shouted above the noise of the traffic. ‘Been talking to Glen again have you? What is it about that Natalie Stevens? You never seemed particularly interested at the time it happened.’
‘Yes, I was.’ She caught up with him and took hold of his hand. ‘I just thought the police would catch whoever did it. Charge Liam Pearce. Everyone thought it was an open and shut case.’
He laughed. ‘You sound like your father. How is he? S’pose he has to cook his own meals and everything. My Dad wouldn’t stand a chance.’
The Sports Centre was coming into sight. Karen put her hands in her pockets. ‘Right, you can ask me now.’
‘Ask you what? Oh, that. It’s not important. I just thought you’d gone off me, wondered if you and Glen–’
‘Me and Glen?’ She couldn’t stop laughing.
‘People often go off with their best friend’s boyfriend. Or girlfriend if it’s the other way round. You’re always telling me you can’t stand Glen but people often say that when–’
Karen gave him a push and he stumbled towards the river, pretending he was going to fall headlong into the water.
‘Yes, I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, ‘but I wouldn’t go with Glen Fortune, not if he was the last guy on earth.’
*
Arkwright Way was more than a mile long, with side roads every fifty yards or so, leading to more identical redbrick houses. Karen had checked the phone book but there were two ‘Pearces’, one at number forty-six and the other at eighty-eight. She had no means of knowing which of them was Liam Pearce’s house.
In the front garden of number forty-six two small boys were fighting over a skate board. They looked about eight or nine years old so that was unlikely to be the right house, unless they were visitors, and their mother was a friend of Mrs Pearce.
‘What’s the other number?’ said Simon. He had listened in silence to Karen’s plans, then muttered something about how the whole thing was crazy and what dreadful secrets could she possibly stumble across that the police had failed to uncover? He had come with her just the same.
Number eighty-eight was on a corner. It had no front gard
en but round the back a woman was taking washing from a line. Tiny red track suit bottoms and a matching sweatshirt. Pyjamas with 101 Dalmatians on the front.
‘Look.’ Karen caught hold of Simon’s sleeve. ‘No, don’t stare or she’ll know we’re watching. D’you suppose lots of people came round to gawp – after Natalie’s body was found?’
They crossed the side road and Simon took a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and pretended to be checking a map.
After a moment or two he cleared his throat noisily. ‘All right then, back to the main road, then second on the left.’
As he started moving away Karen made a mental note of the woman’s appearance. Large, but not all wobbly fat. Muscular, big boned. Short, brown hair, flecked with grey. Shapeless blue trousers. Dark red sweater. Grey sleeveless cardigan.
The baby was nowhere to be seen. Karen had estimated that he must be about eighteen months old. No-one could remember his name, or even if it had appeared in the newspaper. Presumably he was inside the house, in a play pen, or sleeping in his cot.
With a movement that seemed remarkably quick for someone of her bulk, the woman dropped her bag of pegs, bent down and scooped something off the ground. A little boy – well, it looked like a boy – beautifully dressed in striped dungarees, a red tee-shirt and white denim jacket. The woman held him high in the air, then drew him close and covered his cheeks in kisses.
Karen let out a small gasp. If this was someone who resented being saddled with her dead daughter-in-law’s baby she was putting on a pretty good show of concealing her real feelings.
Suddenly the woman twisted round and stared in their direction, as though she was listening for something. Karen fiddled with the zip on her jacket and Simon put the ‘map’ back in his pocket.
As they turned the corner they could hear the woman talking to the baby in that special voice people use with little kids. Talking and laughing, the baby responding delightedly. Karen looked back for an instant, just in time to see the two of them going into the house. Mrs Pearce swinging her empty basket, and the baby pushing a black and white dog on squeaky wheels.
Chapter Three
Karen’s mother worked in a gift shop, the kind of place that sells wildly expensive wooden animals and exotic wall hangings imported from all over the world. Her friend worked there too. She was called Judith but a year ago she had dyed her hair orange and changed her name to ‘Jude’. At least Karen’s mother hadn’t done anything quite that stupid. Not yet.
When Karen pushed open the door the Tibetan goat bells jingled loudly but neither Jude nor her mother looked up. They were unpacking china, huddled together at the far end of the shop, both laughing their heads off, probably telling each other filthy jokes.
‘Mum?’
‘Love!’ Her mother sprang up and dashed towards her as though the two of them had been separated for a year. ‘How nice to see you.’
‘Is it?’ Her mother’s bear hug was for Jude’s sake, to demonstrate what a good relationship they had. No, that was bitchy. Her mother was always asking her to call in at the shop. It’s such fun, love, and the new Brazilian flower pots are selling like hot cakes. What on earth were hot cakes?
‘Hi,’ said Jude, using the sleepy, sing-song voice that was meant to make her sound cool, laid back. She was wearing a dress made out of some soft, glittery material. It made her look even fatter than she actually was. Her hair had grown a little but still stood up in spiky bristles. Round her neck she had three strands of grubby looking beads, one mustard-coloured, one sickly green, and another made of what looked like hundreds of dried up baked beans.
‘I just wanted to ask you something,’ said Karen, taking a few steps back from her mother and picking up an ashtray in the shape of a hippopotamus. ‘I thought you disapproved of smoking.’
‘That’s not an ashtray, love. It’s for . . . What is it for, Jude?’
Jude shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ she said, smiling insincerely.
Karen pretended to cough, then cleared her throat noisily. ‘Mum, I was just thinking. If I had a baby and I wanted to go out to work how would you feel about looking after it for me?’
Her mother screamed. The noise was ear-splitting and for a moment Karen thought she must have stepped on a drawing pin. Then it dawned on her that she might have put the question rather badly.
‘No, I’m not that stupid. I just meant if I had one.’
With a deep sigh her mother collapsed into a Malaysian basket chair. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Karen, no of course I didn’t think . . .’
‘It’s my course work. The changing role of women.’
‘Your History assignment?’
Karen nodded vaguely. Actually the work that had to be in by the end of next week was about Child Labour in the Nineteenth Century. She had a feeling she had lost her notes but if she left it to the last minute something would come to her. It always did. In any case she had far more important things to think about. Finding the evidence that would prove Liam Pearce had killed Natalie Stevens. Or that Liam was innocent. After all, the killer could be someone no-one had suspected so far. Just because Liam seemed the obvious person . . .
Jude offered her a cup of decaffeinated coffee but Karen explained that she had to reach the library before it closed.
‘Oh, I thought you’d have your own library at school,’ said Jude, twisting her beads until she looked in danger of strangling herself.
‘We have.’ Karen had her hand on the shop door. ‘But there’s something I need to look up in the archives.’
Archives. It sounded very scholarly. Her mother would be beaming happily – proud of her hard-working daughter – and Jude, who had two teenage boys, one of whom had been suspended from school for writing obscene messages in the bogs, would be insisting girls were so much easier, much more mature.
*
The man behind the information desk had a round face and a thin, straggly beard. When Karen said she wanted to look at old copies of the local paper he kept his eyes firmly focused on a list he was checking and asked what date she needed.
‘I’m not sure. April. The end of April.’
‘Last April?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Did they keep newspapers going back for years and years? If her History course involved looking up the original sources it might be a whole lot more interesting than the boring notes they had been given so far.
‘Don’t go away.’ The librarian disappeared for a few moments, then returned with a heavy pile of newspapers and started walking towards a table over by the photocopier. ‘Bring them back when you’ve finished.’
‘Thanks.’ Karen sat down and checked the date on the paper on top. April the eighteenth. Too early. Now that she thought about it she was certain the murder had taken place on the twenty-first. That was Tessie’s birthday and her parents had paid for a big party, with a disc jockey and flashing lights. Glen had poured vodka into several people’s drinks but Tessie’s parents had blamed another boy so, as usual, Glen had managed to keep his image untarnished.
Karen pulled out the paper dated the twenty-second, and the headline said it all. BODY FOUND IN RESERVOIR. Underneath was a short paragraph about how the body of a young woman had been found but as yet the police had not revealed the name of the victim. Relatives had been informed.
The victim’s name was in the following edition, together with a photograph of Natalie Stevens, dressed in a bikini and dark glasses. Perfect figure, perfect face. Gleaming white teeth. Dark, glossy hair. Karen had always disliked the way newspapers showed jolly smiling pictures of people on holiday or attending weddings, but when you thought about it those kind of photos were probably the only ones their relatives could find.
On April the twenty-sixth there was an account of the inquest. Death by drowning. A blow on the back of the head indicating foul play. There was too much to take in and remember. Karen glanced at the bearded assistant, who was still poring over his list, then placed the relevant sheet of paper on the p
hotocopier and searched in her pocket for the right coins to put in the machine.
The first copy came out with half the story missing. She pulled the newspaper into a better position, then found a couple more coins and managed to copy the news items in two earlier editions. She felt on edge, as though any minute now the man was going to ask what she was doing. But why should he? She had as much right as anyone else to use the library facilities. For all he knew she might need the stories for her school work.
When she returned the pile of newspapers to the information desk he looked up briefly and managed a feeble smile. ‘Found what you wanted?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ She folded the photocopies and stuffed them into her jacket pockets. Later, in the safety of her bedroom, she would study them in detail, but before she returned home there was one more place she had to visit.
*
In the entrance to the Arts Centre a group of laughing, chattering people were studying a poster advertising a French film about a serial killer. She remembered the name. Alex had said it was a work of art, nothing like the American rubbish that appealed to people’s morbid wish for sex and violence.
‘Hypocrites.’ She had meant to speak under her breath but the word came out louder than she expected.
A woman in a long black dress turned round and glared. Karen knew her by sight but couldn’t remember who she was. One of Alex’s fancy friends?
The cafe was deserted, apart from two men sitting at a table by a high window. Karen approached the counter and asked for a cup of tea. She disliked tea, but according to the prices scribbled on a blackboard on the wall, it was the cheapest drink available.
A man with a partly-shaved head and designer stubble dropped a tea bag into a thick mug, then held it under an urn.
Karen had hoped it would be a girl behind the counter, but as she waited she noticed there was someone in the kitchen, slicing up a greasy-looking block of cake. The girl was dressed in a white shirt and black skirt and her light brown hair was tied back and kept in place by what looked like a blue rubber band. Could it really be Joanne? Alex had said Natalie’s sister and a guy called Ray were the only people who worked in the cafe during the day, but as far as Karen could see, the girl in the kitchen bore no resemblance to the photograph of Natalie in the newspaper.
