He ignored Randy, who’d driven us there, and spoke to me. ‘Florence, were you expecting to find Stephen and Susan here?’
I stepped round him. I had no idea how he knew my name.
‘Are you exhuming any more graves, Florence?’ The reporter followed us down the street to the waiting unmarked car.
‘All enquiries to the station, mate,’ Randy told him.
‘How did you know where to find Patsy, Florence?’ He grabbed the car door as I was getting in and I had to tug it from him.
‘Friend of yours?’ Randy said, as we headed back towards the station.
‘I’ve never seen or spoken to him in my life before.’
I didn’t get a reply.
The newsagents’ headline boards that evening read, Patsy: Police Search Graveyards, and someone left a copy of the Manchester Evening News on my desk. On the inside front page was a photograph of me, standing at a graveside, making notes.
We worked late and, when the others headed for the pub, I cycled home. There seemed to be more people on the streets than usual, and twice I heard abuse called after me. I went straight to bed, pushed a chair under my door handle, and slept badly.
The Saturday morning headlines asked, Stephen and Susan: Still Here Somewhere? The accompanying story in the Lancashire Morning Post told us that detectives were continuing to interview known offenders but had no real leads. There was speculation that the TV reconstruction had delayed the investigation by throwing up too many false trails and red herrings and, yes, that story was left on my desk too.
Just before lunch, I got up, left the room and locked myself in a cubicle in the ladies’ toilets. I cried for ten minutes, for no reason I could put my finger on.
Daphne was interviewed again, this time with her solicitor; a tall, thin woman with dark, frizzy hair. She declined, yet again, to name the other members of her coven. Sharples was furious, but her alibis were watertight and there was no way we could charge her in connection with the disappearances. Sharples muttered about obstructing a police investigation, but Rushton wouldn’t give permission to arrest and charge her. In her interview, she asked after ‘that nice young WPC Lovelady’.
I was given the keys to a station pool car, a pale blue Vauxhall Viva. My excitement lasted for the time it took to drive out of the station car park and spot a poster of Patsy on a lamppost.
Sharples sent a member of the team to make enquiries at the local pottery class, but he came back with the news that no one had shown a particular interest in making human figures, or working with local clay. When I got home that night, I asked Sally’s permission to dig some up from their garden and try my own hand at modelling.
At nine o’clock, when I was alone in my room, I was called down to the front door by Cassie. The same journalist who’d spoken to me in the churchyard was there. His hair was dark and limp with the heat.
‘Hi, Florence,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you fancied a drink?’
‘No, thank you.’
He reached out, to give my arm a nudge. ‘Come on, love. Quick port and lemon in the Star – what have you got to lose?’
‘Apart from my job,’ I almost said, but didn’t. I told him to contact the station in the morning if he had an enquiry and closed the door.
Nobody seemed to sleep well that night. I heard several people walking about the house and someone, Luna, I think, crying out in her sleep.
Early the next morning, I made a ball and a fish out of clay from the garden. ‘Don’t give up the day job, Flossie,’ Larry said.
When I arrived at work, it was to find someone had pinned a Crown Paints colour chart above my desk. Ten deepening shades from pale pink to dark red. Someone had crossed out the official paint names – Blush, Poppy, Crimson Sky, Scarlet Letter, Cherry Jam, Robin’s Breast and so on – and written, Grave-Robbing, Centre of Attention, Bollocking From Boss, Run Upstairs, Chasing Suspects, Sexual Arousal. When I dropped it in the bin, every pair of eyes in the room was looking the other way. I had no idea what colour my face was at that moment, but Completely and Utterly Mortified wouldn’t have been far wrong.
The lab we’d sent the clay effigy to told us that yes, the foreign body in the figure’s mouth was the tooth of a young adult human. Dr Dodds confirmed that it could be the canine missing from Patsy’s mouth. Detective Sergeant Brown was uncharacteristically silent for some time afterwards.
Daphne Reece made an official complaint about continued police presence outside her house. Avril Cunningham, her solicitor, reported that her car had been vandalised while parked outside the same property.
By Sunday evening, we could no longer deny that the men of the town had decided our presence on the streets wasn’t enough to keep their children safe. Groups had taken to meeting on corners and patrolling the streets until dark. Invariably, the patrols ended in the pub. There were two large-scale fights in the late hours of Sunday, and five men nursing hangovers and black eyes in the cells on Monday morning. That day’s headline: Sabden – Have the Police Lost Control?
CID spent Monday interviewing the families and wider social circles of the three victims. Stories were examined, and alibis were checked. In the middle of the afternoon, I heard a rumour that something was happening in the interview room. I thought about slipping down, but before I could pluck up the courage, Sharples and Tom appeared.
‘Larry Glassbrook has just admitted lying about his alibi,’ the DI announced.
‘Which one?’ Brown looked up from his desk.
‘All three of them.’ Tom gave me a nervous glance as the room fell silent. ‘He wasn’t at home on the nights the three kids went missing, even though he previously told us he was, and even though his wife backed him up.’
More than one person was glancing my way. They all knew I lodged with the Glassbrooks.
‘Where, then?’ Woodsmoke asked.
‘Black Dog, so he claims now,’ said Tom.
‘Why lie?’
‘Because he wasn’t in the bar with all the other punters, who could confirm his new alibi – he was upstairs having extra-maritals with Beryl Donnelly.’
There was silence in the room. Beryl Donnelly was married to Ted Donnelly, the pub owner, and was the mother of John Donnelly, Luna’s friend.
‘Could be true,’ someone said. ‘Larry’s always been a shagger.’
‘It could be true,’ Sharples replied, ‘but we question Beryl Donnelly very carefully, and we keep an eye on our friend Mr Glassbrook.’
If that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, the evening papers came out and the Manchester Evening News led with a major scoop for them. And a serious problem for us. Patsy: Buried Alive?
‘Who the fuck has been talking to the press?’
I’d never seen Rushton so mad. The glass in his office door trembled as he slammed it. More than one person glanced my way.
Rushton seemed to take in the entire room without moving his head. ‘Anyone? Has anyone at all spoken to any journalist since we found Patsy?’
‘Florence?’ said Sharples.
I got to my feet. ‘Two occasions, sir,’ I said, knowing my face was at Centre of Attention, deepening rapidly to Bollocking From Boss. ‘The same man approached me. I told him nothing and I reported it both times.’
Rushton nodded, but eyes lingered on me as he turned away.
There were even more people on the street that evening, more call-outs to settle trouble and another full set of cells on Tuesday morning. As I drove into work, the news headlines said, Sabden: Police Say All Children At Risk, and also, Stephen and Susan: Have We Failed Them?
Everyone was tense and short-tempered. People swore more than usual, snapped at colleagues, and I don’t think it was the heat.
I was told to put my uniform back on and start visiting schools, including the primaries. I wasn’t a good public speaker, too apt to stutter, speak quickly and blush – Reluctant Public Speaker – but I wrote out a speech and practised at home. I made more clay figures and learned
how to fire them in Sally’s oven.
On Wednesday morning, when the headlines said, Police: Still No Clues, I took five of my clay models into work and arranged them on the window ledge. A fish, a rabbit, a bird, a cat and, in my imagination at any rate, a human figure.
‘Fuck’s this, Blue Peter?’ Detective Sergeant Green said, but they took my point. Whoever had made the clay picture we found with Patsy had some skill as a potter. That same day, the tissue analysis from Patsy’s post-mortem came back negative for benzodiazepine and morphine but positive for alcohol. The toxicologist had tested for several other sedative drugs, but all were negative. As it was highly unlikely that alcohol alone could have kept Patsy unconscious for the length of time she’d have had to lie in the casket before and during the funeral, the toxicologist’s findings strengthened the theory that she’d been put in it after burial.
But the unsoiled state of her clothes was still bothering me. As was Dwane’s insistence that the grave hadn’t been touched. Glassbrook and Greenwood carried out two funerals that week. I made an excuse at the station and slipped out to watch them both, from the time the cortèges left the parlour to the interments in nearby churchyards. I watched everything the funeral directors and staff did, and I thought long and hard.
The super introduced compulsory overtime and put me back on the beat. ‘You’ve done a good job, lass,’ he said, to my surprise. ‘And Jack will still want to use you, but for the next few days, I want as many visible bobbies as I can get.’
So I went back to walking the streets, noticing that children didn’t seem to play on corners so much, and that even the adults seemed to be hurrying home, glancing nervously around.
Focus had shifted, I realised, from a need to find Patsy’s killer to the fear that another child was going to be taken.
34
Saturday 28 June 1969
On my first morning off in thirteen days, I slept in. Breakfast was served later at weekends in the Glassbrook house, but I’d missed it all the same.
The kitchen was empty but for Cassie. She was sitting at the central table, her pale hair falling over her face, polishing what looked like jewellery.
‘Pretty dress,’ I said, although I really thought the white cheesecloth creation made her look like a cut-price, hippy bride. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Cleaning my crystals,’ she told me.
While I waited for the kettle to boil, I watched her. It wasn’t jewellery on the table in front of her but stones, of a pale, gleaming luminescence. Four of them were a silvery white, the other a soft pink.
‘What do you clean them with?’ I asked, more to make conversation than because I was remotely interested. I’d always found Cassie’s vague dreaminess a bit annoying.
‘Silk and moonlight,’ she told me.
I made a point of peering out of the window. No moon that I could see.
‘I leave them outside my window tonight,’ she said. ‘And tomorrow night too. It’s the full moon.’
‘I haven’t seen your dog for a while,’ I said. ‘Were you minding it for someone?’
‘What dog?’ Her eyes were wide, her mouth clasped in a tiny pout. She started to twirl a strand of pale hair round one finger.
‘The one I found locked in your shed a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Was that the night you dug up the grave?’
I turned away, ostensibly to make tea.
‘Or do you often steal my father’s keys and let yourself into his private shed?’ she asked the back of my head.
I turned back round, not liking the sly smile that was hovering around her mouth.
‘If I come across it again, I will have to tell your parents,’ I told her. ‘You can’t keep a dog locked up in a shed. It’s cruel.’
‘They won’t believe you.’ She stared at me without blinking for several seconds. I remembered her sleepwalking habit, and that it is supposed to be a sign of emotional strain in children.
‘Cassie,’ I said, ‘is there anything worrying you?’
Her silver-grey eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, Flossie,’ she said. ‘Children my age are being kidnapped and murdered, and the police haven’t a clue what to do about it.’
‘I meant anything at home. Anything you might feel uncomfortable telling your parents.’
‘I tell my parents everything. I’ll tell them what you just asked me.’
I stirred the teapot and poured a mug. I found milk in a jug and added it, annoyed to feel my hand shaking. Even more annoyed that I jumped when she spoke again.
‘It’s considered very unlucky around here to see a black dog. Are you sure it was a real dog, not a grim?’
I’d spent much of the last couple of weeks reading up on all aspects of the supernatural and I knew about the legend of the ghostly black dog that was supposed to be a harbinger of death. I wasn’t going to admit as much to Cassie, though.
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ I carried the spoon to the sink and rinsed it, put the milk jug back in the fridge.
‘Or a familiar? Seriously, Flossie, did you actually touch it?’
‘Cassie, you’re being tiresome.’
I took my tea out into the garden. Even so early in the day, the sun was warm. From Larry’s workshop I could hear the shrill buzzing of a power tool, which sounded like a trapped insect. I wandered over to the furthest corner, unfolded Sally’s deckchair and sat down.
I drank tea, felt the sun hot on my face and watched the bees zipping in and out of the hives, filling the air with their low-pitched purring, just as the peach-coloured roses that hung over the nearby apple tree filled it with scent. The insects danced as they came back in, shimmering their tiny, plump bodies, clustering round each other as though in deep conversation.
I felt my eyelids start to droop. I hadn’t finished my tea, but it seemed a good idea to put it down.
I woke to find myself in shadow. Something told me I’d only nodded off momentarily, but I was no longer alone. Six people surrounded me, one of them, the tallest, was between me and the sun.
One of them had a hand-held transistor radio. The Lulu hit ‘Boom Bang-a-Bang’, which had won the Eurovision Song Contest a few months earlier, was playing, albeit tinny and distorted.
‘What are you doing, Luna?’ I’d recognised her red hair out of the corner of my eye. The boy in front of me, blocking out the sun, was John Donnelly. I glanced round to see Richie Haworth, Tammy Taylor, Dale Atherton and a black girl whom I didn’t know. These were Patsy’s friends, the last people to see her alive, apart from her killer.
John’s eyes dropped to his boots. They were old and scuffed, the leather splitting in places. ‘We were wondering whether you could tell us anything about Patsy.’
‘We had a lot of information come into the station after you did your reconstruction,’ I said. ‘It will take time to go through it all.’
The children exchanged glances.
‘Are we in danger?’ said Luna, and I knew she wanted me to say yes.
I wanted to say yes.
‘Not if you’re sensible,’ I said instead. ‘Not if you stay in groups.’
‘My mum saw Patsy’s nan in town this morning,’ said Tammy. ‘Patsy’s body is going to be moved to the chapel of rest in Burnley this afternoon.’
I bent down to retrieve my mug. ‘You know more than I do,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t heard that.’
‘We’re going to go and see her,’ said Richie Haworth. ‘We’re going on the bus this afternoon.’
‘Really?’ I looked at John, who seemed the most sensible of the group. ‘Well, that’s up to you. But I’d think carefully if I were you. Dead bodies are never pleasant to look at.’ I pushed myself up and got to my feet. ‘Enjoy your Saturday,’ I told them. ‘Whatever you plan to do with it.’
‘Miss Lovelady!’
I’d barely gone ten yards when John Donnelly came striding after me. ‘You’ve been at the school a lot,’ he said.
I waited.
‘As
king lots of questions, about Patsy and the other two. And about all their friends.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I have.’
‘So I was wondering whether you think anyone at the school is responsible.’
‘No, of course not. But if Patsy, Stephen and Susan were all taken by the same person – and we don’t know that for sure, but if they were – then there will be something that links them. Do you know what I mean by a common denominator?’
He gave a half-nod. ‘It’s a mathematical term,’ he said.
‘It also means a feature shared by all members of a group. Patsy and the others will have had something in common. And whatever it is will point to who took them.’
‘Have you found anything?’
I hadn’t. I’d spent hours gleaning every last bit of information on the children’s lives that I could find. I’d spent more hours inputting it onto my various charts and far, far more staring at it, waiting for something to strike me. ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But if something’s there, I’ll find it. I’ll see you, John. Take care.’
I went inside and he went back to his friends. They formed a tight circle by the hives, heads together, occasionally glancing over to the house.
‘They’re up to something.’
Cassie had crept up on me. She was peering over my shoulder, uncomfortably close.
‘They’re kids,’ I said. ‘Kids are always up to something.’
‘I heard Luna on the phone last night.’
Over Cassie’s shoulder I could see the children again. They were climbing over the wall onto the open moor.
Cassie said, ‘I heard her say “Patsy” three times. She was talking to Unique Labaddee, that black girl. Her family are well weird.’
‘Unique Labaddee? Is her mother called Marlene?’
‘I think so. Runs a flower shop on the main road.’
The Craftsman Page 15
