Joanna and Mike exchanged glances. This was not a description of the Christine Bretby they knew. The Christine Bretby he saw was a different woman.
‘You miss her?’ Korpanski asked.
Bretby nodded. ‘I’d have her back tomorrow,’ he said, ‘if I thought it could work. But with Kayleigh there,’ he said, ‘it won’t and I’m not fool enough to think it would.’
‘Why did you marry Christine?’ Joanna asked curiously.
‘I loved her. We wanted children,’ Bretby said. ‘I really wanted kids of my own.’
Maybe, then, that was the reason for Kayleigh’s resentment – a fear of being replaced.
SEVENTEEN
Tuesday, 7 December. 10.55 a.m.
Now there was only Peter Harrison to track down. She rang Johnny Ollerenshaw and after much humming and hawing he produced an address in Fulham and a mobile telephone number.
Harrison answered on the second ring, with a jauntily Cockney, ‘’Ello?’
Joanna introduced herself and received a wary, ‘Ye-ah?’ Again there was that upwards, questioning inflection.
‘We would like to interview you.’
‘What about?’ He was sounding wary.
‘It’s concerning your daughter.’
‘My daughter?’ Harrison sounded astonished, as though he hadn’t even known he’d got one.
‘Yes – Kayleigh,’ Joanna confirmed.
There was a brief silence before, ‘I can’t think what you can want to see me about Kayleigh for. I haven’t seen her in years. I wouldn’t know her if I passed her in the street. What do you want to speak to me about her for? Is she in trouble? What’s she done?’ His voice held genuine astonishment.
‘When did you last see her, Mr Harrison?’
‘Goodness knows. How old is she?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘Well, then.’ He was quiet for a minute before answering, ‘It’s probably twelve, thirteen years ago that I last saw her. As I said – I wouldn’t know her from Adam. Or do I mean Eve?’ Untroubled, he chuckled. ‘She’s practically a young lady now then, ain’t she?’ Another pause. ‘Although I very much doubt my daughter’s a young lady. Now that would be a turn up for the books.’
Joanna waited for Harrison to ask what she was ringing him about but curiously he didn’t. It was left to her to move the conversation forward. ‘Look, Mr Harrison,’ she said patiently, ‘I really need to speak to you face-to-face.’ She glanced at her watch. It was still only eleven. ‘We can drive down and meet you later today.’
‘Is it so important, Inspector? I can’t understand what it can have to do with me. She may be my daughter but I don’t know her. I don’t know anythin’ about her.’
‘Please.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Harrison caved in, probably realizing he had no choice. ‘All right. If you insist. I can meet you later today. How about somewhere near the Edgware Road? The Travelodge.’
It was about 140 miles. If the motorways were clear they should get there in three hours. They allowed four and arranged to meet at three o’clock, Joanna giving him a mobile contact number in case of delays on the motorway.
Tuesday, 7 December. 3 p.m.
The motorway behaved itself. They even had time to stop for a coffee and at five to three Joanna and Mike were walking through the doorway of the Travelodge on the Edgware Road.
Harrison spotted them straight away and lifted his hand in greeting. He was a tall, slim man who bore more than a passing resemblance to his daughter. He shared Kayleigh’s expression, looking at the same time both streetwise and vulnerable. As they drew closer Joanna saw that he also had Kayleigh’s cow-brown eyes that changed from warm toffee to cold mud in an instant. And he had his daughter’s small, slightly prim mouth. But he differed from Kayleigh in two significant ways. Her crowning glory was her long, shining hair; her father had practically none – and what he did have had been shaved off and replaced with a tattoo, interestingly saying, Sod ’em all. The second big difference between father and daughter was Harrison’s teeth. Kayleigh had the milky teeth of the young. Her father’s were large and yellow. They were predatory or ‘wolfish’. In fact, the description Kayleigh had given of her attacker fitted him like a glove. It was, to say the least, disconcerting. Joanna studied him carefully and he was quite well aware of her scrutiny.
She ordered a tray of tea and the three of them sat down together; she, Korpanski and Peter Harrison, in an unobtrusive corner of the Travelodge.
Initially Harrison was friendly. ‘I knew you was cops the second I saw you,’ he confided cheerfully. ‘Funny how you stick out, ain’t it?’
‘Yes, funny,’ Korpanski echoed, his dark eyes missing nothing as he studied Peter Harrison. Joanna knew he would later be sharing every single thought that passed through his mind. She smothered a smile. She knew perfectly well that her sergeant didn’t quite know what to make of Harrison. Yet.
Peter Harrison glanced at them both in turn. ‘Now what’s all this about my girl?’
Joanna poured them all some tea then took up the questioning. ‘You say you haven’t seen your daughter since she was one or two?’
Harrison crossed his legs, took a noisy slurp of tea and met their eyes comfortably. ‘Not for years. She was a baby when me and her mum split up. I was never really one for marryin’.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Shouldn’t have done it, really.’ He gave a brief, cynical laugh. ‘Only did it to give the kid a name. It seemed important at the time – don’t know why,’ he said reflectively, blinking. Then he grinned. ‘Probably wouldn’t bovver now. Anyway, not long after Kayleigh or Little K,’ he smiled, ‘or Special K, as we called ’er, was born, I ’opped it back down to the Big Smoke. I can’t breathe out there in the countryside. All that mud and stuff. Stinks. Give me good ol’ car exhaust any time. And bloody freezin’ too, even in the summer. Nah – once a Londoner always a Londoner, that’s what I say.’
Joanna watched him. Harrison didn’t seem to be a bad bloke, just not the marrying, fatherly kind. A little like her own father, who had not done responsibility, either. And very unlike Matthew Levin, who almost seemed to need it.
Harrison was watching her. ‘So what’s ’appened to ’er, then?’
Joanna didn’t answer the question straight away but chose a circuitous route. ‘You knew that her mother had remarried?’
‘Yeah. I was glad about that. Poor old Christine. She was a romantic. Wanted flowers and chocolate and stuff.’
‘Yes,’ Joanna agreed, thinking of the Klimt on Christine’s wall.
‘I was sorry it broke up,’ Harrison added frankly.
‘You heard about that?’
‘Yeah. Me and Johnny ’ave kept in touch.’ Harrison grinned. ‘’E keeps me informed.’
‘What’s your opinion of the reason they broke up?’ Joanna asked delicately.
‘What – that Christine’s new bloke touched up my little daughter? Look,’ he said earnestly. ‘I don’t know the bloke. Right? I don’t know my daughter either so I can’t really comment, can I?’
Joanna shrugged. It was fair enough but most men would burn if they thought another man had sexually assaulted their teenage daughter. Even if they had little to do with that daughter. Obviously Harrison had no paternal feelings for Kayleigh at all.
She felt a tinge of pity for the girl and scrutinized Harrison’s face. No feelings? And yet . . . something was there. She just couldn’t work out what it was.
Harrison drew in a deep breath. ‘You still haven’t told me what Kayleigh’s been up to.’
‘She has made an allegation that she was sexually assaulted outside Patches nightclub on the night of November thirtieth,’ Joanna said baldly. ‘She was found on the following morning, in the car park. It was snowing and she was suffering from hypothermia.’
‘Oh my –’ Harrison looked genuinely shocked.
‘She was lucky to survive,’ Joanna said, adding, for effect: ‘the doctors said that if she hadn’t been found she would h
ave been dead in an hour.’
‘Poor little thing,’ was Harrison’s response. But it struck Joanna that his statement was no more impassioned than he would have voiced over any female. Not especially his daughter.
‘You keep in touch with your Leek friends?’
‘No, not really. Only Ollerenshaw.’ Harrison spoke casually but his eyes flickered away as he spoke. Together with Kayleigh’s description of her attacker, which was so obviously a description of her father, it alerted Joanna. She shot Korpanski a swift look and leaned forward, asking silkily, ‘When did you last see your old pal Ollerenshaw?’
‘Couldn’t tell you exactly.’ His response struck Joanna as deliberately vague.
So she pursued it. ‘In the last six months?’
Harrison looked uncomfortable now. ‘Possibly.’ This was at variance with Ollerenshaw’s statement.
‘In Leek?’
Harrison looked even more uncomfortable. He shuffled his feet then looked up. ‘I was there about a week ago,’ he finally admitted.
‘Let me get this straight, Mr Harrison,’ Joanna said very slowly and deliberately, beginning at last to see a glimmer of light. ‘You were in Leek on November thirtieth, weren’t you?’
Harrison nodded.
And now the soft breeze of the truth was blowing and the fog was lifting. ‘You went to Patches, didn’t you?’
Harrison paled and looked as though he might choke. Joanna looked at Mike and gave a tiny, triumphant nod as she asked her next question. ‘Do you own a leather bomber jacket, Mr Harrison?’
‘No.’ He chewed his lip then confessed. ‘Yes.’
‘You went to Patches alone, or with someone?’
‘On my own.’ Harrison nodded stiffly, as though he knew all further questions were going to lead to a place he had no wish to visit.
‘You danced with some of the girls there; had a drink?’ Joanna spoke chummily. She gave her quarry an easy smile. But her glance was predatory, her eyes glued to Harrison’s face as his shoulders dropped, defeated.
She flipped two photographs on to the coffee table. ‘Did you dance with either of these girls on that night?’
Harrison’s eyes glided over the two photographs before he looked up, frowning. ‘This is Kayleigh, ain’t it?’
Joanna nodded. ‘Did you see Kayleigh on that night?’
Harrison shifted uncomfortably and tried to lie. ‘Like I said, Inspector, I wouldn’t have known my daughter from – well, Eve.’ He tried the smile again.
Harrison’s story was full of itty bitty holes. It didn’t take a trained detective to spot them. ‘But you recognized the picture of your daughter now?’
Finally Harrison admitted it. ‘Yeah,’ he said.
Joanna indicated the second photograph. ‘And these girls?’ She flipped to the picture of Molly Carraway, then Clara Williams and lastly Danielle Brixton.
Harrison’s face was a blank. He looked up at Joanna, then at Korpanski and shook his head. ‘No. I don’t know these other girls. Who are they?’ Harrison risked the lamest of jokes. ‘Not more daughters I don’t know about?’
‘This girl’s name is Molly Carraway. She’s missing.’
‘Never heard of her.’ Harrison’s voice was confident.
‘She’s a schoolgirl who went missing from Patches last Friday night and hasn’t been seen since.’
Harrison still held on to his jauntiness. ‘Can’t ’elp you there, Inspector. Sorry.’ He grinned.
‘This girl is Clara: her friend who was the last person to see her.’
Harrison nodded. ‘Pretty little thing, ain’t she?’
‘She is. And this . . .’ Joanna flipped the last photograph down on the table, ‘is Danielle Brixton. She was raped and left to die outside a nightclub in Newcastle-under-Lyme back in May.’
‘Seems like crime’s worse up there than down here,’ was Harrison’s comment.
Joanna couldn’t be bothered to pursue this subject. ‘It would seem so.’
Korpanski took over the questioning. ‘Have you been in Leek since the night of November thirtieth?’
Harrison shook his head.
‘You weren’t there last Friday?’
Harrison looked relieved and exhaled loudly. ‘I weren’t anywhere near Leek last Friday,’ he said. ‘I was down here at a restaurant on the Fulham Road, in full public view.’
‘Can you give us the name of the person or persons you were with?’
Harrison was patently on safe ground now. He visibly relaxed and nodded quite comfortably, even leaning back in his chair and resting his big hands on his stomach. ‘Of course I can. There was a whole bunch of us.’
‘But you were in Leek and at Patches the night your daughter was assaulted?’
Harrison looked paralysed. He tried to say he hadn’t known it, but the words stuck. Joanna knew she would be better served by doing this properly, with legal representation present, or at least the offer of it.
The words, when she uttered them, were an absolute inevitability. ‘We’re going to have to bring you in for questioning, I’m afraid.’
Harrison nodded, resigned. But he hadn’t quite lost his fighting spirit. ‘I’m not under arrest, am I?’
‘No. Not at the moment.’
‘I can come up to Leek in the morning,’ he conceded, ‘with my solicitor.’
Again Joanna nodded, steadily, holding back the feeling of triumph which was seeping through her. She had to remind herself she was not there yet.
‘In that case you’re free to go now, Mr Harrison,’ she said. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind coming to Leek police station tomorrow and making a statement – under caution?’
Harrison nodded.
‘What did you make of that, Mike?’ They were safely back in the car, had taken the North Circular and were heading back up the motorway.
‘I don’t know.’ Korpanski’s answer was predictably non-committal.
Joanna was frowning. ‘I can’t work out what’s going on,’ she said. ‘I’d really like to speak to Kayleigh and her father at the same time.’ She turned in her seat to look at Korpanski’s profile; the thick neck, the bullish expression, ‘Mike,’ she said tentatively, ‘the word collusion seems to pop up in my mind. What’s going on?’
‘Collusion?’
‘Yes.’ Joanna slowly nodded. ‘Between Kayleigh and her father. They met that night. He recognized her photograph.’
‘So what’s it got to do with Molly, then? Is it going to lead to her?’
‘I don’t know. There’s some connection. Perhaps – perhaps not. But –’
‘What?’ Korpanski grunted.
‘Nothing. A stupid thought.’
Korpanski grinned and swerved to avoid a lorry which had swung out after one swift flash of his indicator. ‘Bastard,’ he grunted. Then: ‘How stupid?’
‘I wonder if the crimes really are – no; it is a stupid thought.’
She fell silent then but her mind was skipping around the odd assortment of half facts she had so far.
It was a long, slow journey back to Leek and she and Korpanski were tired when they turned into the police station. ‘Sure you wouldn’t rather drop me off at your house?’ Korpanski enquired politely.
‘No.’ She turned to him. ‘I shall want my car in the morning, Mike, but thanks anyway. And I don’t want to take you out of your way.’
‘All right. See you tomorrow.’ He smiled at her. ‘At least the snow’s held off.’
She managed a smile and held up her index finger. ‘One good thing.’
‘No. Two,’ he said. ‘We have found Kayleigh’s—’
‘Stop right there,’ she said softly. ‘Right there.’
Matthew was already in bed when she turned in but she was too exhausted to sleep. Molly was still out there. When she closed her eyes she saw the girl’s face: laughing, happy, safe.
She punched her pillow and lay back, her arms reaching out to touch Matthew’s shoulders as they rose and fell. He murmured
something in his sleep.
But instead of her matching his restful, peaceful sleep her dreams were vivid and disturbing.
Little Red Riding Hood was opening the door of the cottage. Someone was sitting up in bed.
‘Oh, grandmother, what big teeth you have.’
She knew what the implication was of the encounter between father and daughter.
EIGHTEEN
Wednesday, 8 December. 7.15 a.m.
Another day marked off on the calendar towards zero. She stood very still and stared. Three and a bit weeks before the wedding. It felt like time was running out; life was closing in on her.
She wished it was spring and she could at least enjoy the bike ride through the moorlands, into work. But it would be at least a month after the honeymoon that she would be able to resume her daily cycle ride.
Waiting on her desk were the forensic results on Molly’s gold earring. She scanned it through. Just as expected. Molly’s blood; Molly’s DNA on the tiny piece of tissue caught on the catch. No one else’s. She tossed the report aside. It hadn’t told her anything she hadn’t already guessed.
It hadn’t told her how Molly came to lose her earring. Had it been torn from her or had it simply got caught in something? Girls lose earrings all the time. Joanna fingered her own pierced ear, half closed her eyes and imagined.
Someone’s fingers closing round the hoop. Tearing, fighting, a struggle, pain, a stifled scream; blood, the tinkle of gold as it hit the floor.
She sat up as the obvious hit her. Blood. Earlobes bleed profusely. She remembered Matthew telling her so once in one of his little ‘tutorials’. ‘Earlobes are vascular, Jo. Plenty of blood around.’ He’d given one of his bright grins. Matthew knew she was a little – just a little – squeamish. He’d never quite forgotten her puking up in the sink after her first post mortem. And every now and again, when he wanted to score points, he’d remind her.
A Velvet Scream Page 19
