by J M Gregson
He looked at her serious young face, with its freckles and its earnest openness. At that moment, he hated her, for her youth and her rank. He said, ‘At the time, I don’t think I did. Perhaps I chose to ignore what was there for me to see.’ His self-disgust was suddenly manifest.
‘Were you still seeing her at the time of her disappearance?’
If he knew how vital a question it was, he gave no sign. ‘No. We’d packed it in not long before.’ Then, as if remembering that he was a policeman and mindful of Peach’s reminder about dates, he said, ‘About a month before, I suppose. Maybe a little less.’
Lucy said, ‘When you say, “we’d packed it in”, do you mean it was a mutual decision? Or merely that you had decided that enough was enough as far as you were concerned?’
‘It—it was me. I realized that Debbie wasn’t reliable. She was quite wild in what she said, sometimes. I was afraid it would get back to Sue.’ He was shamefaced now, surprised to find the woman so calm in her questioning.
‘But you knew she was pregnant.’
She fed in the key question as a statement, implying that they knew far more than they did, and it worked. ‘Yes.’
‘Were you the father?’
There was a silence, when they had least expected it. For a moment, she thought she was going to have to put the question again. Then he said slowly, ‘No. I’m sure I wasn’t. But Debbie said I was.’ He looked up at them, his wide, suddenly naive, eyes full of puzzlement. ‘I could never quite be sure when that girl was being serious. She was threatening to tell everything to Sue.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Gary Jones was terrified that the police would search his room. He had been brought up to distrust them, and he did not understand the law about search warrants. He had learned over the years that a black boy who was under suspicion didn’t get much joy from quoting the rule-book.
He should have got rid of Debbie Minton’s brooch. He knew that. He did not need a river, though the Ribble was within three miles of where he worked. He crossed the Leeds and Liverpool canal every day on his way from the grubby Brunton street where he lived to the golf club. He began work at seven, even in the winter months, so that there was no one about when he crossed the old stone bridge beneath which the sweating horses had once tugged the coal-filled barges.
It would have been simple to brake the little Honda motor-cycle and toss the brooch into the filthy grey water beneath him; he needn’t even have dismounted. But he could not bring himself to throw away his last link with Debbie. Instead, he took the brooch, wrapped in a clean handkerchief, and put it at the back of the single shelf in his locker in the greenkeepers’ shed. In the months to come, he would ask himself many times how he could have been so foolish. He knew the answer, though at first he did not care to admit it to himself: he was still not rid of Debbie Minton. The hold he thought he had broken two years earlier was upon him still.
For three days, he left the little package undisturbed. Then, in the gloom of the late afternoon when the others had left, he saw the white cotton wrapping, startlingly obvious when everything else in his locker was indistinct. He looked at it for a few seconds, telling himself it was time to change his shoes and be off.
Then, like an ex-smoker asserting that he was strong enough now to hold the cigarette packet in his reformed hands, he reached in and took out the brooch.
The pewter was dull, scarcely visible in the subdued light at this darkest corner of the huge, concrete-walled shed. But the fragments of green glass gleamed bright as the emeralds they simulated, bringing back memories of a laughing girl, flinging back her dark hair, thrusting the new brooch she was so proud of close to his dark eyes, which could focus only on the soft breast which was so desirable beneath it.
‘Pretty, that.’
Gary’s heart leapt so fiercely that he felt for a moment as if his whole body had left the floor. His head swam as he turned, so that he had to clutch at the open door of the metal locker to retain his balance.
Charlie Booth. Grinning like a devil discovering sin, holding in his hand the billhook he had been using to clear a wooded bank on the course. The years dropped away and Gary was back in the playground, a skinny black boy in short trousers, confronting a stocky, grinning figure who had called him nigger and thrown a banana skin in his face.
The fight had ranged over three corners of the old concrete playground, then out on to the edge of the grimy winter playing field. He had beaten the bigger boy in the end, against all the odds, though no one except the watchers could have discerned from their bloodied noses and grazed knees who had been the victor. But he had been on top, raining blows from his small fists upon the writhing heap beneath him, when the master had finally arrived. Every one of the pupils who had ringed the flailing limbs to urge on this eruption of boyish hatreds knew who had won.
Neither of them had mentioned the fight from that day to this, through five years of the comprehensive and two years of working together at the North Lancs. But the resentment had lain between them like a shrouded corpse, silent but unforgettable. Suddenly, the corpse was rearing itself into life.
Charlie Booth moved forward, savouring his advantage, taking the brooch from the palsied fingers which closed too late in defence. ‘Very pretty indeed.’ He looked at Gary’s face, then back at the bauble in his grubby palm, recognition dawning. In that moment, fear mixed itself with the delight on the flat, revealing features. He said, ‘This is Debbie Minton’s, isn’t it? We all knew you were daft about the bitch.’
‘Give it back!’ Gary grasped at it, remembering how Debbie had rejected Booth for him, and how delighted he had been by that at the time.
‘Not likely!’ Charlie was back in the playground again all those years ago, taunting the wide-eyed black face with the single-minded malevolence of a child, turning sideways to keep his burly torso between the grasping fingers and his trophy. His shirt was open to the waist with the effort of using the billhook on the course. Gary could smell the sweat, mingling with the blood from the shallow bramble scratches on his tormentor’s body as they struggled over the brooch.
Then, without warning, Booth was overtaken by the considerations of an adult. ‘How do you come to have this? Was she wearing this when—?’ He thrust the trophy away from him as eagerly as he had grasped it, back into the hands which had sought it in vain a moment earlier. ‘No wonder you were worried when they said we were going to drain the old quarry pond. You knew she was in there! You knew because you’d put her there.’
Charlie Booth backed away as he said it, raising the billhook he had been using on the course, a medieval serf prepared to defend himself from a violent contemporary. He kept his eyes on Gary Jones until he reached the door, then flung the weapon away as he turned and ran.
The master should have come earlier to save him all those years ago in the playground. This time he would find the master for himself. Gary watched the flying figure hopelessly from the door of the shed, as it raced towards the clubhouse and the secretary’s office.
***
When you were in trouble, you turned back to your parents. You liked to pretend you were fully independent, even to make gentle fun of the old worriers when you talked to your fellow-students, but you were glad they were there when you needed them. When you only had one parent, she was even more vital to you in times of stress. You did not admit it, of course, or even say where you were going. But you went, nevertheless.
Francis Turner went home to consult his mother.
Or rather, not quite home, but to her office at Turner Home Services. It felt a little less like running back to mother to go there; he could pretend to be taking an interest in the business which his father had founded and his mother now ran: the family business, though none of them had ever described it as that.
Perhaps there was a tiny concession to the idea of proprietorship in his dress. He adhered to the student uniform of jeans and sweatshirt, but they were his newest ones, and they were immaculately
clean. The big one-storey building with its long counter was as busy as ever, so that the staff who spoke to him as he passed had scarcely time to notice his dress.
Christine Turner rose as if he had been a customer as he went into her neat office. For a moment, there was a little awkwardness between them, which there would not have been in the privacy of their home. It was not helped by the reason for this meeting; anxiety hung in the air between them in the instant before he hugged her against his slim chest.
How vulnerable he seemed to her! So tall now, and yet still a child! She could feel his heart pounding against the side of her head as she rested it against him, not wanting to break the moment with the words she knew must come. But even as she broke away from him, she heard herself saying, ‘Well? What did they have to say?’
‘Easy, Mum, easy!’ He guided, her gently to the armchair, then sat opposite her. But they were each on the edge of their chairs, sitting upright, scarcely three feet from each other. Like conspirators, he thought.
‘You first!’ he grinned, trying to lighten the tension he felt between them. He had never felt it before, not quite like this. Any experienced CID man would have recognized the stress which spreads out from a murder investigation to all those involved in it.
‘I told you. The woman came to see me. Detective sergeant, I think she is. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I quite liked her. I told her about Debbie in the time she spent here. About the disruption she caused. “An easy screw”, one of the men called her: that about summed it up.’ Christine could not prevent her old resentment that her son should have fallen for such a creature from tumbling out.
‘Did you tell Detective Sergeant Blake that?’ Francis Turner had always been able to remember names; his older relations found it one of his more annoying traits.
‘Yes, if that was her name.’ She saw her son’s disappointment in her. ‘Debbie Minton caused me far too much trouble, here and elsewhere, for me to want to protect her reputation, Francis.’
‘Me being the elsewhere.’ For a moment they were on the verge of quarrelling, of renewing the old high words of two years and more ago. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry. You’ve every right to resent her, even now. I suppose I was just trying to take my share of the blame.’
She reached out and took his hand, her irritation transformed in an instant into a mother’s protectiveness. ‘Don’t talk like that, please, love. Not now. I didn’t mention you to the policewoman, and she didn’t press me.’
Francis smiled grimly. ‘Well, they pressed me. Your Sergeant Blake and that rottweiler of an inspector who seems to be in charge.’
‘Percy Peach.’ This time it was she who was surprised by her recall of the name. She smiled as she explained it. ‘He’s a member of the golf club. A new one. But he didn’t come here.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t fancy bearding the Ladies’ Captain in her den. Anyway, he took it out on me.’
‘They knew about you?’
‘Of course they did.’ For a moment, he was irritated by her innocence. ‘They knew all about Debbie and me dabbling with the drugs. They have their records, even though we weren’t charged. And you might just as well have mentioned me—no doubt it only made them more suspicious when you didn’t. They’ve been talking to everyone who went about with Debbie in the period before she disappeared, as you might expect.’
Christine Turner felt suddenly desperate. Was it all to go wrong, in the end? Were all her unaccustomed deceits to be for nothing? She said, trying to keep a note of apology out of her voice, ‘I told them about Debbie and the drugs. I just didn’t mention you.’
‘That was probably a mistake.’ He said it with a casual, unthinking cruelty. ‘They realized how worried you were about my relationship with Debbie, anyway.’
‘How much did you tell them?’ Fearing the answer so much, she had to force herself to ask the question.
For the first time, he registered the suffering on her face. ‘I told them you’d warned me against her, but I wouldn’t listen. I told them she was opening her legs to all and sundry.’ It was the first time he had used a phrase like that with his mother, and he looked up at her automatically to see if it had shocked her.
Her only reaction was a worried nod. ‘What about the pregnancy?’
‘They asked me if I knew about it when she disappeared. I said yes. I didn’t want them catching me out in lies, and I wasn’t sure how much they knew. They were clever about that.’
‘And no doubt they wanted to know if you were the father.’
‘Yes. I told them I didn’t know. I didn’t think I was, but I could have been, I said.’
‘Oh, Francis! They’ll think whoever was the father of that foetus is their killer. I’m sure of it.’
‘Well, I thought it best to tell them the truth, as far as possible.’ He smiled at her, a boy again, wanting to be praised as he always had been for his honesty, little realizing how much it had cost her to try her clumsy, ineffective deceptions on his behalf. ‘Anyway, I held back the important bit. I didn’t tell them how we’d tried to buy her off. How she’d refused to allow us to pay for an abortion.’
***
‘We’ve been talking to some of the members of your youth club, Joe.’ Peach stretched his short legs in front of him. The Reverend Joseph Jackson was regretting asking to be addressed as Joe at their first meeting. It seemed much more than a few days ago. But a lot had happened since then. And this awful man with the taunting beaver grin was going on. ‘Not to your present clientele, of course, Joe. We’ve spoken to the ones who were the contemporaries of Debbie Minton.’
‘I see. Of course, one loses touch with most of them, unless they come regularly to church. And regrettably—’
‘They’ve been very helpful to us, those boys and girls. Men and women now, I should say, of course. Reliable witnesses if we should need them in court, I should think—forgive me, Joe, but we policemen tend to think in these terms, I’m afraid.’ Again there came that awful grin, leering at Jackson like a Cheshire cat from between the wings of the old high-backed armchair in the vicarage reception room.
The vicar licked his lips, looking hopefully at Lucy Blake, but finding no salvation in that young and serious face. ‘Were they able to help you at all? With finding out who killed Debbie Minton, I mean?’
‘They were very helpful. Very cooperative, even the ones who didn’t like the police, once we’d shown them what was what.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Isn’t it? It’s gratifying to find the young so helpful. They told us Debbie was sleeping around. “Putting it about a bit” was the phrase most of them used, I think. Not a very pleasing term, but vivid, in its way, I suppose. But then you’d already told us much the same thing, Joe, so they were merely confirming it for us.’
‘Did they—did they come up with anything else that was useful?’ Jackson wondered why he was drawn on, in spite of himself. Peach seemed to expect it of him, and he was no match for this man’s will.
‘Yes, they did, Joe. That’s why we’re here, as a matter of fact. But then, I expect you’ve deduced that for yourself. We CID people sometimes think we have a monopoly, whereas any intelligent person like yourself can make deductions, of course.’ He smiled contentedly, enjoying this philosophical strain. ‘I suppose what distinguishes us professionals is that we have some experience to draw on; and of course we are in a position to put together all the findings from different sources. That sometimes makes us look rather cleverer than we are, fortunately. For instance, I can now confirm that we are definitely interested in the older man Debbie was associating with.’
‘Or men.’ Jackson was pleased with this, but he could not manage the self-deprecating smile he tried to produce.
‘Or men, as you say. Things are never straightforward in this life, are they? But several of these young people have told us the same thing about one older person, and that is quite useful to us. But not to you, I’m afraid: rather the opposite, in fact.’
> ‘I—I’m afraid I don’t quite understand. I told you everything I could last time you—’
‘Hands up skirts, Joe. Very naughty. Especially for a vicar, most people would say. Position of trust, and all that.’
‘Now look here—’
‘No, you look, Joe!’ Peach’s voice was suddenly like a whiplash. ‘We’ve quite enough to put you in court, if we need to. And Debbie Minton was under sixteen at the time of the first offence. Jail bait. And you must have known it.’
‘I didn’t have sex with her. I was weak, I don’t deny it, but she led me on. I wish I’d never seen her.’ Jackson thrust his face into his hands as his voice croaked out the sentiment they had heard so often. Then his shoulders were wracked by tearless sobbing: they could scarcely hear his muffled voice as he brought out the phrase he had rehearsed over the long nights of anticipation of this moment. ‘There was no penetration, you know.’
Peach nodded at Lucy Blake, and she said, ‘Perhaps not, Mr Jackson, but there would be a charge of indecent assault, at the very least.’ The wretched figure opposite them nodded, head still clutched in the large hands. ‘We can’t guarantee that there will be no such charge, but we won’t be instrumental in bringing it. We’re interested in the greater crime of murder, you see. If you can help us with that, it is bound to help you.’ She did not know if she should have gone so far, but Peach seemed to approve it.
Percy said to the cringing figure, ‘Help you, that is. Unless you killed her, of course. Did you kill her, Joe?’
Jackson felt so weary of the nightmare that he had scarcely the energy to deny them. They were going to get him, anyway, despite what the girl had said. And if they didn’t there was always the dead girl’s father. You couldn’t expect mercy from him. Almost half a minute passed before he said, ‘I didn’t kill Debbie Minton. I didn’t even have sex with her. I touched her. And she touched me. A few times. And she was probably under sixteen, at first, as you say. It was just a bit of cheap excitement, for her. When I saw the way she went on with others afterwards, I was sure of that. It didn’t even seem such a big thing at the time—I’m sure it wasn’t to her. But it’s haunted me ever since. And now it’s going to destroy me.’
