Running Girl

by Simon Mason

  In his mind he went through recent events. He thought about the mistakes he had made. He thought, with a feeling of fury, about Garvie Smith, remembering the way the boy had turned to him in the car just a few hours earlier to tell him that Naylor was not the murderer of Chloe Dow. He remembered how he felt. Exasperated. Furious, even. Afterwards he’d driven back to Naylor’s hut as planned, to meet the pathologist, determined not to think any more about what Garvie had said. But despite himself he began to be doubtful, and the longer he worked at the hut in the dripping woods with the forensics team, the longer they failed to find the phone that Naylor must have used when he called Chloe, the more his doubts nagged at him. He kept going over the evidence in his mind. It was strongly against Naylor. The groundsman was a man of violent tendencies exacerbated by his addiction to cocaine. He’d raped before. He’d been obsessed with Chloe, stealing her things, photographing her, stalking her at school, spying on her at home, pursuing her as far as Pike Pond, where he’d even been seen the Friday afternoon of her murder. He’d lied about his alibi, which had turned out to be bogus. It was beyond all reasonable doubt: in the old clichéd terms, he had the means, the motive and the opportunity.

  And yet (damn that boy) Singh’s doubts nagged and would not stop. It wasn’t until he was driving home at four o’clock in the morning that he finally realized what Smith must have meant, and at once turned his car round and drove at speed to Cornwallis Way, where he surprised the night staff by striding past them without a word, then running up the stairs and across the empty open-plan area into his office, and pulling open the filing cabinet drawers to hunt for the list of the meetings at the Centre for Public Service Partnerships.

  Then he sat at his desk staring at it while the murky green dawn came up. Staring at one entry in particular:

  17.30–20.30: Group Therapy (SOTP)

  It was so obvious he’d forgotten it. Naylor had been enrolled on the compulsory SOTP programme. Every Friday he attended the weekly group sessions. Every Friday, taking into account his travel time, he was occupied from five o’clock till nine o’clock – exactly the window of the time of Chloe’s death. It was his alibi for the thirteenth. He’d lied to them about it not because he was guilty of Chloe’s murder but to hide the fact that he was a sex offender.

  A call to the night staff at Probation Services duly confirmed it: Paul Johnson had been at the Centre on the evening of Chloe’s murder.

  So Singh sat alone in his office, his morning prayers completely forgotten, watching the dawn come up.

  He was still sitting there, haggard and filthy, when colleagues who had heard the news came into his office to congratulate him on the closure of the case. In their faces he saw how he must look, with his wet turban and bloodshot eyes, and he saw their puzzlement when they failed to get a response from him other than a disgusted stare. Occasionally he heard them whispering questions to his PA outside. Some time later he heard Dowell and Collier at the water cooler outside his office addressing a group of younger officers about the investigation, Dowell saying, ‘It took longer than it should have but we got there in the end.’

  Then all conversations died away, and he looked up to see the chief constable come into his office and carefully close the door behind him. They looked at each other. There was no trace of congratulation on the chief’s gaunt face as he told Singh that he was relieved the Dow case was finally closed.

  Singh couldn’t wait any longer, and, rising to his feet, said, ‘We got the wrong man.’

  The chief looked at him with the same dead expression. His eyes seemed lidless.

  ‘He was her stalker,’ Singh said, ‘but not her killer.’

  Still the chief said nothing. His eyes were locked on Singh’s. Singh began to explain about Johnson’s SOTP programme, but his voice failed and there was silence in his office.

  ‘To think,’ the chief said slowly, ‘that I promoted you.’

  He left the thought hanging in the air for a moment, standing silently watching Singh as if he expected the man to shrivel, implode and turn to dust. In fact, that was what Singh felt was happening to him.

  ‘To think,’ the chief said again, quietly, ‘of the mistakes. Of the blunders. Of the stupidities.’

  Singh was unable to speak. No speaking on his part was required, however.

  ‘To think of the suicide of an innocent man,’ the chief went on. He rested his cold eyes on Singh. ‘Of the wrongful arrest of Alex Robinson. Of the hours and hours, stupidly, moronically, spent looking for a non-existent Porsche.’

  Even when he was quiet it seemed to Singh that the chief’s face continued to glow slightly, alien and phosphorescent, with the force of his contempt.

  ‘There’s a press conference in twenty minutes,’ he added, and at that moment the phone rang.

  Singh stood looking at it stupidly.

  ‘Answer it,’ the chief said.

  Singh picked up the phone, and heard Shan’s voice say, ‘I know it’s meant to be all over, but something’s come up. Can you come in?’

  Singh glanced at the chief. ‘I’m busy,’ he said to Shan.

  ‘It’s something I don’t understand. Something that doesn’t fit. You better come and see it.’

  Despite himself, Singh felt a little jolt of curiosity. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Footage from CCTV at Bootham Street. Near Market Square.’

  Singh didn’t reply but slowly replaced the receiver, frowning. For the first time that morning he felt something other than despair. Despite everything, he felt the wild, improbable sense of a last chance.

  ‘At the press conference—’ the chief constable began again, but Singh took a breath and said, ‘Please. Wait a moment. There’s something you have to see.’

  The chief stared at him. Singh managed to hold his gaze.

  ‘Wait a moment? What is this?’ the chief said in a whisper.

  Singh took a breath. ‘A non-existent black Porsche, I think.’

  The angle of the CCTV camera was all wrong and the footage muddy-coloured and granular, but the picture was clear enough to show the distinctive contour of Bootham Street with its church and bank, the early evening traffic heavy in both directions, and blurry, speeded-up lines of people knotting and unknotting as they made their way along the pavement to the bars and clubs in Market Square.

  After a moment Shan slowed the tape and pointed to the figure of a dark-haired woman wearing a dark dress and pale jacket waiting by the kerb.

  ‘Chloe Dow,’ he said. ‘The reason we didn’t spot her sooner is we were looking at Market Square. She was just south, in Bootham Street. I’m sure it’s her, though. See the clothes and the hair. And the way she’s looking out for someone. Now watch.’

  He speeded up the tape again, and they saw a low-slung car with the familiar Porsche profile approach from the Market Square end of the street, turn out of the jerky flow of traffic and pull up alongside the kerb. It was black. The passenger door was pushed open from inside, Chloe stepped down off the pavement and got in, and the car at once edged back into the traffic and flowed away in the direction of the ring road.

  ‘It’s not possible to work out the registration at this distance,’ Shan said. ‘But there’s analysis to be done on the car. And the driver. Probably a man. Could be a woman. No one else in the car, so far as we can tell.’

  The chief constable shifted his gaze from the screen to Singh and raised one eyebrow.

  Singh took a breath. ‘Chloe Dow was scared. She was being harassed by her ex-boyfriend. She was being stalked by Naylor. But the person who really scared her is in that car. That Thursday night she got dressed up and went out with him and something happened.’

  There was a silence while the chief contemplated this.

  ‘What?’ he said at last.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Another silence.

  ‘If she was so scared, why did she get into his car?’

  Singh took another breath. ‘I don’t know.’

/>   The chief continued to stare at him. ‘Who is the man in the car?’

  ‘I don’t know that, either. But if we find out what happened after she got into that car on Thursday evening we’ll find out what happened the next day at Pike Pond, I know it. I can guarantee it. I was right,’ he added stubbornly, ‘about the black Porsche. No one believed me except ...’

  ‘Except who?’ the chief said sharply.

  Singh put the thought of Garvie Smith out of his mind. ‘Except the stepfather. He saw it when Chloe came home that night.’

  He ran out of things to say, and stood, almost to attention, facing the chief.

  For a full minute the chief eyeballed Singh and Singh returned his gaze. At last the chief took a step towards him, and brought his face up close to Singh’s and said in a low, compressed voice, ‘Go to the press conference. Tell them what you’ve done.’

  He turned away.

  Singh said, ‘Does that mean ...? Can I ask if ...?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Do I remain in charge of this investigation?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ the chief said, not troubling to turn round, and continued out of the office.

  44

  THERE WAS NOTHING anyone could say or do to cheer him up. Not Smudge or Felix, for all their jokes and smokes at the Old Ditch Road playground. Not Jess with her pretty bare feet and slinky ways. Not even Abdul, who greeted him with characteristic eagerness every morning as Garvie trudged past his rank at the Bulwarks Lane shops.

  ‘My Garvie man, how is, how is?’

  But all he’d get was a shake of the head and a few muttered words: ‘Is bad, Abdul, très bad.’

  He didn’t shun people, but he didn’t talk much. When he smoked, he smoked as if he were alone, lost in the swirl of his thoughts as in the swirl of the marijuana smoke around his face.

  The only person pleased by this change in him was Miss Perkins: his spirit was so broken that for three days running he attended all his timetabled lessons – including lunch-time and after-school revision classes. His mother should have been pleased too. But she was still barely speaking to him.

  From time to time a memory would come unbidden into his mind: his mother weeping in her dressing gown. Like all his memories it was sharp and real, and as well as giving him pain it raised painful issues. She was right. He’d been playing a game. He’d treated Chloe’s murder like a puzzle, a formal problem with interesting features, to be solved at his leisure and promptly forgotten, careless of the consequences. Almost as bad as the memory of his mother weeping was the image of Naylor hanging from the roof of his hut.

  And now the fact that Chloe’s death remained unsolved was terrible in a way it hadn’t been before. The thought of it sat in his mind like a guilty secret.

  Worst of all, he had to attend all these stupid revision classes. And so he plodded in and out of school, hardly talking.

  Friday lunch time it was sunny, and Smudge and Felix went up to Top Pitch for a smoke, and Garvie sat with them, staring across the playing fields towards the city centre.

  ‘Seems to me,’ Smudge said, ‘anyone could’ve worked out it wasn’t Naylor that done it.’

  Felix blew out smoke. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Well. It was just too obvious. It’s all right for books. But it’s never like that in real life.’

  ‘What do you know about real life, Smudge?’

  They smoked in silence.

  After a few minutes Smudge nodded in the direction of the school and said, ‘Here’s a bit of real life I’d like to know more about.’

  Jessica Walker was climbing the grassy slope towards them, pausing every so often to adjust the straps of her wedge sandals. She’d taken off her cardigan and tied it around her shoulders, and she was wearing sunglasses, very dark against her pale face.

  ‘Jess, girl, looks like you just come off set.’

  Ignoring him, she walked over to Garvie. ‘Hey, Garv. Got a cig for me?’

  Without looking he tossed over his pack and carried on gazing across the field, and she slipped off her shoes and settled down next to him and lit up.

  ‘Did you get my texts?’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Come on, Garv. You can’t brood for ever.’

  He raised an eyebrow slightly.

  ‘You got to let it go.’ She blew out smoke. ‘You can’t bring her back. Even if you had ... you know. Feelings for her.’

  Garvie sighed wearily.

  She said softly, ‘If you need help, you’ve only got to ask.’ Her lips parted slightly and she blew a little noose of smoke towards him. ‘You know what I mean.’

  Smudge called over, ‘You’re wasting your breath, girl. He’s got some sort of disease means he can’t talk no more. He’s not said nothing for, like, three days. We can still talk over here, though, Felix and me. Though Felix is a bit boring, to be honest.’

  She gave him the finger and lowered her voice further. ‘Come on, Garv. I’ll make you forget her.’

  He glanced at her; for a moment it seemed he was finally going to speak, but instead he sighed again and lowered his head into his hands with a groan.

  ‘I keep trying to tell you, Garv. All you got to do to win is play. Know what I mean? We could be so good together, you and me.’

  Garvie didn’t move or lift his head out of his hands, and she pouted and struggled to her feet.

  ‘But I’m not going to wait for ever,’ she said.

  Smudge looked interested.

  ‘Now we’re talking, Jess!’

  ‘Leave it out, pie boy.’

  She put her sandals back on and turned away, and without lifting his head Garvie said into his hands, ‘What did you say?’

  Jess hesitated. ‘I said, “Leave it out, pie boy.” But I was only talking to Smudge. I wasn’t—’

  ‘Before that.’

  She glanced uneasily at Smudge and Felix, who sat looking at her with interested expressions. ‘I said that about not waiting. You know, for ever.’

  Garvie looked up. ‘You said, “All you got to do to win is play.”’

  ‘Yeah. Well.’ She fiddled with her ear, embarrassed. ‘Clear enough, innit? No need to broadcast it.’

  She would have said more, but she was silenced by the sight of Garvie leaping to his feet with his phone already clamped to his ear, and she watched him, astonished, as he began to pace up and down on the sunlit turf.

  He paused briefly and looked at them all. ‘I am a moron,’ he said in a slow, deliberate voice. ‘A moron.’

  Now even Smudge looked embarrassed. ‘No worries, mate. We can’t all have brains.’

  Garvie stopped pacing and spoke urgently into his phone. ‘Alex, mate. Don’t think, just react. All you got to do to win is play.’

  Hard-eyed, tense-faced, he stood listening.

  ‘You sure? Definite? Safe. Doesn’t matter what it means. Yeah. It is. Very important. Catch you later, man.’

  As if Jess wasn’t surprised enough already, Garvie took her in his arms and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Jessica Walker,’ he said. ‘You’re a bit of a star.’

  Smudge said, ‘Here, Sherlock, do you want to tell us what this shit storm’s all about?’

  Garvie looked back from the top of the slope. ‘Don’t you remember, Smudge? You asked what gambling’s got to do with anything.’

  ‘Yeah. So?’

  ‘Chloe could have told you.’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘Play to win. Give it a shot. Take a chance. Stake it all. Lose your shirt. Don’t you think that sounds a bit like Chloe?’

  ‘Yeah, but ... Yeah. But ...’ He stood silent.

  ‘Friday afternoon she was at Alex’s and they had this blow-up row. She said something to him he thought was odd but he couldn’t remember what it was. Well, he just remembered. All you got to do to win is play. Muttered it to herself. Bitter. It happens to be the Imperium slogan.’

  Momentarily forgetting Jessica’s presence, Smudge scratched, deep and hard. �
�I still don’t get it, though,’ he said at last. ‘I mean, what was her game?’

  ‘Good question. That’s what I’m going to have to find out.’

  Then he was gone.

  45

  THERE WAS ANOTHER way of looking at it: all you got to do to lose is play. But Chloe would have scorned thinking like that. She was the brass girl, tough and durable. She didn’t do slow and safe: she wasn’t made that way. She took risks, seized the day. But why did he think suddenly of Chloe’s mother, puffy-faced and lost-eyed in her dressing gown? Why did he remember the photographs of Chloe as a child along the mantelpiece in her room, the teddy bears on her bed? He wiped a hand across his face and sighed. Then he went over the Imperium car park wall in the usual way and made his way through the cars and shadows.

  The first thing he saw was a black Porsche sitting by the casino’s back entrance. Strolling over to it, he walked around it once. It was short and low-slung, so black it was almost blue. He peered in through the windows, gave a low whistle and strolled away again into the shadows on the far side of the car park, where he lit up and smoked for a while, telling himself he was trying to decide what to do next, though he already knew, as he always seemed to.

  Inside, he resumed his stroll with a complimentary glass of champagne, seeing no one he knew – partly a bad thing, partly a very good thing – and thinking about Chloe. Why had she come here? To win, obviously.

  But – as Smudge had asked – what game was she playing?

  Keeping an eye out for the manager, he strolled methodically through the baccarat and poker rooms, past the roulette and blackjack tables, past the slot machines and one-armed bandits, across the coffee lounge and bar. And as soon as he had refreshed his sense of the layout of the place, he strolled through a door marked STAFF ONLY and disappeared from view.

  On the other side of the door it was suddenly quiet. There was no Roman theme. It was plain and functional. Garvie looked both ways down the corridor and turned left. Soon he came to the foot of a staircase carpeted in black shag-pile with a gold chain hung across the entrance, and he looked up the stairwell for a moment, then continued along the bare corridor. From time to time he passed a door on the right-hand side, always locked. He turned left and left again, noting how the corridor turned to follow the perimeter of the public rooms of the casino. Soon, he calculated, he’d reach the restaurant and cocktail bar. A minute later he heard voices ahead and, turning left again, found himself in a small lounge area filled with sofas and low tables half obscured by over-large potted plants of an exotic nature. It was deserted. But on the opposite side were three doors, one of them open, and through it came the sound of an angry voice.