by John Dean
Blizzard turned back to the vandalised grave, which lay in an overgrown corner of the cemetery, beneath a large oak tree. He glanced at the neighbouring graves stretched along the nearby red-brick perimeter wall, half-concealed in shadows cast by the late afternoon sunlight. Most dated from the late 1800s, stained green with creeping lichens, their inscriptions all but obliterated by the scouring action of more than a hundred years of driving northern rains. Satisfying himself that none of them had been violated, Blizzard turned back to the only one that had. Violated was the word, he thought, as he surveyed the spattered paint. This was a calculated attempt to desecrate. But desecrate what? Desecrate whom? Desecrate Jenny Galston, who fought so hard to protect her children? Desecrate the memory of poor little Chloe? Dear God, surely not, he thought.
Blizzard looked pensively at the white lettering on the stone, the words bright and sharp against the shiny black marble. Not that the chief inspector needed to read the inscription, he knew well enough what it said:
Jenny Galston
Born July 9, 1973
Died November 13, 2002
Aged 29
And written beneath, next to a small picture of a cherubic little child, all brown curly locks and beaming smile:
Chloe Galston
Born April 4, 1995
Died November 13, 2002
Aged 7
Together for eternity. Rest in peace in the arms of the Lord.
Peace, thought Blizzard bitterly, there had been precious little of that in the last moments for mother and daughter. As always when he looked at the stone – and he never missed an anniversary of the deaths – the chief inspector was struck by the fact there was no mention of Pauline Galston. But then how could there be? Chloe’s ten-year-old sister had somehow escaped the butchery of that night. Or at least, her body had never been found. She was still out there somewhere, either mouldering in the damp ground or walking around laden down with her memories. Or with no memories at all, perhaps? Blizzard did not know the answer and the thought disturbed him. It had always disturbed him. A veteran of many a murder case, this was one of the few that had found a way through his defences and there were still too many unanswered questions even fifteen years later. The Americans called it closure, John Blizzard preferred to call it unfinished business.
Standing in the peace of the cemetery, the light starting to fade as dusk approached, his mind went back to the events of that wicked night in Kensington Terrace, a Victorian street not far from the city centre and on the very edge of Western CID’s patch. Sometimes – many times – he wished he could not remember the events but he knew the images would never go away. Sometimes they shook him roughly from sleep and he would wake, sweating profusely, his heart thumping. A detective sergeant at the time, Blizzard had been the first CID officer to arrive at the house, police having been called shortly after 7.15pm following a frantic 999 call from a neighbour. He recalled once again his growing sense of horror as he entered the dimly-lit hallway to see the blood smeared along the linoleum floor. He recalled the young uniform constable sitting at the bottom of the stairs, her face ashen and hands gripping the banister for support, and he recalled the sound of an unseen male colleague throwing up in the downstairs bathroom at the back of the house.
The chief inspector tasted once more his own fear, sharp at the back of his throat. He remembered again how, hardly daring to breathe, he walked into the living room to find Jenny Galston, soaked in blood, dead from numerous knife slashes, hands thrown up to protect herself from her assailant, a mother fighting desperately to the last to protect her children. Chloe was upstairs, lying on her bloodstained bed, her curls smeared with blood; her clear blue eyes lifeless, and her bright green dress stained maroon. Blizzard had always remembered the motif on the front of the dress: a bright yellow elephant with sparkling eyes and a sparkly green hat, the animal still waving cheerily amid the carnage. Blizzard had stood in the bedroom and sobbed like he had never sobbed before, closing the door lest anyone see his tears. Not that they would have begrudged him his emotions – many were crying already, many more would cry time and time again for little Chloe in the years that would follow. Blizzard was one of them and he felt the tears start in his eyes again now.
‘Damn,’ he murmured, reaching into the trouser pocket of his suit and fishing out a white handkerchief. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’
It never leaves you, he thought as he dabbed his eyes. That’s what Harry Roberts used to say. Blizzard recalled his old friend and mentor, the detective chief inspector in charge of the initial investigation, standing in Chloe’s bedroom, shaking his head in disbelief as he murmured over and over again, ‘such savagery, such savagery.’ Despite his determination to catch the killer, Harry Roberts was destined never to arrest him, taking his sense of guilt and failure to his own grave five years later, just three months before he was due to retire. Blizzard recalled that final evening in the darkened room of the hospice, as his friend lay dying of cancer, the Galston case the only unsolved murder in an outstanding career.
‘John,’ Blizzard recalled Harry saying, reaching out a frail hand from his bed, each painful word sending spasms through his withered body, ‘get him for me.’ Blizzard had nodded and, fighting back the tears, said hoarsely, ‘I will, Harry, I will.’ Harry had fallen silent after that and Blizzard had sat for an hour, holding his hand and crying silently in the darkness. Just before he left, assuming his friend to be asleep, Harry had squeezed his hand, whispering so quietly as to be almost inaudible, the words, ‘I pray they can forgive me.’ ‘For what?’ Blizzard had asked but there were no more words after that and he knew it was goodbye. By the time the night was over, Harry Roberts had found the peace that had eluded his final days.
Blizzard had not found that peace yet and the passing years had made his pledge to Harry seem a hollow one, that last cryptic comment as impossible to fathom now as it was at the time. Even now, having become the DCI in charge of the case four years previously, an arrest remained frustratingly distant for Blizzard, also the only unsolved murder case on the chief inspector’s books. Well, Blizzard thought with an involuntarily shake of the head as he looked again at the gravestone, the official records might list the case as unsolved but he knew who had done it; everyone knew, even Harry had known. Always look close to home, Harry constantly told his officers, and close to home meant the children’s father Danny Galston. Harry had never wavered from his belief about Galston’s guilt and neither had John Blizzard. Sometimes the chief inspector would glance up to the heavens and wonder if Harry were watching him, urging him to make the breakthrough, force Danny Galston into that final mistake. The chief inspector did it now, staring up at the clouds that were starting to gather as the afternoon came to an end.
‘Sorry, old son,’ he murmured.
He hoped Harry heard. Somehow, he felt he had. Reaching down to place his flowers, Blizzard’s thoughts turned back to Pauline Galston. He remembered, with a stab of guilt, that he had not cried for her. Neither had others on the inquiry, as far as he was aware. He knew why. Photographs showed a sallow child with long, lank black hair and staring, lifeless, eyes. She was, neighbours had said, a strange little girl. Solitary. Uncommunicative. Difficult to know. When they were talking to her, those eyes would shift away from their gaze and she would stare at the ground, apparently not hearing their words. By the time she reached her ninth birthday, Pauline hardly spoke to anyone and her teachers were expressing growing concern about her performance at school. Because she was different, the other children bullied and insulted her and, finally, having elicited no response and seeking more responsive targets, carried out their final indignity and left her to live in a world apart. Then on the night of November 13, 2002, Pauline Galston lived no more; even though her remains had never been found, Blizzard had always known instinctively she was dead. He had always felt the gravestone should have her name on it as well.
Glancing round at the sound of a cracking twig, he was not surprised to s
ee a tall figure in a black windcheater picking his way across the damp grass, occasionally reaching out an arm to push through the bushes which had all but obscured some of the older graves. David Colley never missed an anniversary either, the detective sergeant drawn back by memories of those terrible events in his early days as a DC. The friends never made a formal arrangement to meet at the cemetery but both knew the other would be there at some time during the day.
‘What happened?’ asked Colley. He gestured at the paint. ‘Kids?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You thinking something else?’
Blizzard shrugged. Colley placed his flowers alongside those of the chief inspector. Neither men said anything as they looked at the headstone in solemn silence. For Colley, the moment had additional poignancy because his girlfriend, Jay, was in the early weeks of pregnancy although the couple had not yet announced the news. Even though he and Blizzard had known each other for years, the sergeant dreaded telling him because he was not sure how he would react. Divorced from a childless marriage more than a decade ago, the chief inspector had never shown much empathy for children. Although Blizzard always tried to accommodate the demands that children placed on his officers, Colley sensed he did not really understand them. Indeed, it was only now that the sergeant was starting to appreciate the responsibilities that came with fatherhood. He realised it had been a hidden world, and as more of it was revealed to him, it grew ever more intimidating. The thought of little Chloe lying cold in the ground made it even more so for the sergeant. Never a particularly emotional man, he was surprised to feel the sting of tears and turned away so Blizzard could not see.
‘You OK?’ asked the chief inspector.
‘Yeah, something in my eye.’
‘Right.’
The men stood in silence for a few moments more, then Colley turned to his colleague.
‘I’m beginning to suspect we’ll never get him, guv.’
‘We have to, otherwise I’ll have to keep out of Harry’s way when I get to heaven.’
‘Who said you were going to heaven?’
Blizzard chuckled. A sudden breeze sprung up as the fading sun was blotted out by a cloud and a chill darkness descended on the cemetery. Startled, the chief inspector shivered and turned sharply, sensing someone behind him. Standing twenty metres away, between two weathered gravestones, was a young girl with long black hair. Wearing a white dress and probably no more than ten-years-old, she stared silently at the chief inspector with lifeless eyes.
‘Jesus,’ gasped Blizzard, the colour draining from his cheeks.
‘What?’ asked the sergeant, turning quickly.
‘Don’t you see her?’
Colley looked across the deserted cemetery to where his colleague was pointing.
‘See who, guv?’
But she was gone.
Chapter two
The next morning found John Blizzard sitting in his office, deep in thought as he sipped his tea. It was seven o’clock and he had come into work early after a disturbed night in which the image of the strange little girl kept invading his dreams. Weary of his constant tossing and turning, his girlfriend Fee had kicked him out of bed shortly before five with orders to sleep in the spare room. Unable to settle, Blizzard drove instead to Abbey Road, allowing his thoughts to roam as he guided the car along the dark country lanes between his village and the orange glow of the city. They were still turbulent as he pulled into the half-empty car park of the police station, a selection of prefabs supposed to be temporary but still there thirty years later. Few officers were on duty and the chief inspector had enjoyed the solitude as he walked along the dimly-lit corridors towards his office.
Having sat for the best part of an hour, he had still failed to come up with a rational explanation for what had happened the previous evening. And not for the first time. He knew the girl was Pauline Galston but also that she was not real. He did not believe in ghosts. It could not go on, he knew that, and despite his longstanding suspicion of the medical profession, Blizzard reluctantly resolved to go back to his GP. The chief inspector flicked on the reading lamp and tried to concentrate on the pile of reports in front of him. But, having scanned the same line half a dozen times without taking it in, he tossed the file back onto his cluttered desk.
‘Bloody HR,’ he grunted. ‘Haven’t they got anything better to do with their sodding time?’
He sat in silence for a moment or two, staring moodily out of the window into the rain-flecked darkness again, and inevitably his thoughts turned to Danny Galston. What was required, Blizzard had asserted on being appointed head of Western Division’s DCI, was a cold-case review and a dedicated team to follow it through. However, every time he thought he had freed up a couple of officers, something happened to derail his plans. Blizzard scowled at the documents on his desk: if it wasn’t crime, it was paperwork. It was no wonder he never got round to locking up Danny Galston.
But he knew there was more to it than that: headquarters viewed the Galston case as unsolvable. Privately, and in his more irrational moments, the chief inspector wondered if the fact that Danny Galston had been a police officer in one of the constabulary’s rural divisions, before coming to Hafton to start his haulage company, was anything to do with it. He remembered a weary Harry Roberts sitting in this very same office at Abbey Road one night three months after the killings, cradling a glass of whisky and turning hooded eyes on his colleague as he said in a quiet voice: ‘There are too many secrets here, Johnny, my boy.’ He had refused to elaborate and 15 years later, the words still had a troubling resonance.
There was a light knock on the door and in walked Colley. As the sergeant slumped on a chair, careful not to spill any of tea from the mug he was carrying, the chief inspector eyed him affectionately. Blizzard did not like many people, but he liked David Colley. The sergeant was everything his boss was not. Affable and easy-going, he was a decade younger and much sharper in appearance. Tall and lean, a result of his rugby playing, the detective sergeant had black hair which was neatly combed as always; his round, almost boyish, face was clean-shaven; his black trousers, blue shirt and grey jacket were all perfectly ironed by Jay; and his black shoes gleamed.
‘In early,’ said Blizzard, looking at his weary sergeant.
‘Jay had a crappy night so I’ve let her sleep in.’
‘What about work?’
‘Not sure she could face the little darlings this morning. I’ll ring the headteacher later.’
‘She missed a couple of days last week as well, didn’t she?’
‘Yeah.’
‘She ill then?’
‘Er, no. That is, yes. Well, sort of.’
Blizzard raised an eyebrow.
‘A bug,’ said Colley.
‘Ah,’ said Blizzard, giving the merest of smiles. ‘And do you think you’ll come down with it?’
‘I can safely say I won’t. Anyway, what is this, twenty bloody questions?’
‘Sorry,’ replied Blizzard.
‘No, I’m sorry. Just a bit tired, that’s all,’ said the sergeant. Eager to change the subject, he looked closely at his colleague. ‘Last night in the cemetery. What did you see?’
‘Nothing.’
‘But you said…’
‘Leave it.’
There was an uncomfortable silence after which the sergeant got up and walked out into the corridor, watched with consternation by his boss. The last thing Blizzard wanted to do was offend his trusted right-hand man.
‘Where you going?’ shouted Blizzard.
‘To start again,’ said the sergeant’s disembodied voice from the corridor. ‘I’ll be David Colley, you can be John Blizzard. You need to remember he’s a grumpy old bastard. Ready?’
‘Yeah, ready,’ chuckled Blizzard, relieved that the sergeant’s customary good humour had resurfaced.
There was a knock on the door and in walked Colley.
‘Good morning, guv,’ he said.
‘Good morning, David,
’ said Blizzard.
Both men grinned; it was a ridiculous little charade but it banished the tension from the room.
‘I did some checking,’ said Colley, lowering himself back into the seat and reaching out to the desk for his tea. ‘The Galston gravestone was not the only one attacked with paint. There have been others in recent weeks. Uniform reckon it’s kids.’
‘I am sure they do.’
‘You don’t sound convinced.’
‘I’m not sure what I think,’ said Blizzard, wincing as he shifted in his seat.
‘Pills not doing any good then?’
The chief inspector shook his head and grimaced as the pain stabbed again at his back. The spasms had come on several weeks previously after he spent two hours in driving rain, watching officers searching derelict docklands for clothes linked to a murder inquiry. Reluctantly, the chief inspector had gone to see his GP three days later when the pain became too severe and he was forced to spend two days in bed. The doctor had diagnosed mild fibrositis, cheerfully told him his spine was crumbling and prescribed painkillers and rest. Faced with a growing caseload, Blizzard took the pills but ignored his recommendation to take it easy and had returned to work the following day, although he was still moving with some difficulty three weeks later.
‘Perhaps you should have a few days off, guv. Fee reckons you are overdoing…’
