Korpanski eyed her sceptically. ‘You can’t know all that, Jo. You’re not a prophetess.’
She laughed. ‘No, I’m not, but I can pretend.’
Korpanski took advantage of her mood. ‘Still dreading the wedding?’
She shook her head. ‘Not any more.’ She reached for the phone, dialled and waited until she heard the voice at the other end of the line. ‘Mr Ollerenshaw, you should have told me that Peter Harrison had been visiting you regularly in Leek.’
‘I couldn’t see what it could have to do with that but I knew you’d try and make a connection.’
‘I have, Mr Ollerenshaw. Believe me, I have. But it would have helped us if you’d come clean with us from the first.’
After she put the phone down she looked at Mike. ‘Fancy a trip to the Potteries?’
He grinned. ‘Do I have a choice?’
For answer she unhooked her coat from the hook.
‘Are you going to tell me where we’re headed?’
‘I thought we’d visit Danielle Brixton’s mother. I’ve rung her and she’s agreed to speak to us.’
Korpanski was silent for most of the journey into the Potteries but eventually he couldn’t resist asking, ‘Whatever for?’
She took her eyes off the road. ‘Wait and see.’
There was a prolonged, further grumpy silence before Korpanski said, ‘You’re not supposed to do that, Jo.’
‘Do what?’
‘Keep me in the dark.’
She gave him a sideways glance. ‘I’m keeping you in the dark, Mike, because I am. Not because I’m playing some sort of a game.’
‘Right.’ Accepting that he folded his arms and settled back in his seat.
Danielle had lived in a sold-off council estate in Knutton, an area of Stoke-on-Trent which years ago had supplied miners to the nearby Silverdale Colliery. Now the area was rundown and slightly depressing.
Danielle’s mother proved to be a small woman with faded blonde hair and a coarse expression. But she still looked too young to have had her daughter die in such a way.
Joanna introduced herself and Mike, flashed the obligatory ID and Shirley Brixton led them inside a small room scented with plug-in fresheners which barely masked the smell of cigarettes.
Joanna opened the interview. ‘Mrs Brixton, I’m sorry for your loss.’
Shirley Brixton managed a tight smile. ‘I’m getting used to it,’ she said, ‘believe it or not. When bereavement counselling told me I would I didn’t believe them. But it’s true.’
‘Did Danielle have a boyfriend?’
The woman sniffed. ‘My girl’s dead,’ she said in a flat, wooden voice. ‘What good can any of this do now? She wasn’t murdered Inspector; she just died of neglect.’ She sniffed. ‘No one even cared enough to get her to a hospital.’
There was no answer to this.
Shirley Brixton continued gently. ‘I can’t see how it’ll help you find your girl, Inspector.’
‘Maybe not,’ Joanna agreed. ‘We’ll see. Thank you for your time.’
Danielle’s mother smiled. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I did warn her, you know. I told her she was too young to go out clubbing.’ She paused. ‘And she was, wasn’t she? She weren’t up to the sophistication of the men there. They was older. She didn’t understand what she’d got herself into. Alcohol, maybe drugs.’
There was no fair answer to that so Joanna simply nodded non-committally.
She glanced at Korpanski. He was sitting with a wooden expression on his face, staring straight ahead of him. Then he turned his head, caught Joanna’s glance and made an expression of resignation together with a twitch of his hands. It was his way of asking, So what have we achieved, coming here, raking over cold ashes? She smiled back at him.
‘We’re getting close, Mike,’ she said on the way home.
‘The thing is, Jo, do you believe Harrison’s story?’
‘Call me naive,’ she responded, ‘but yes. I do. I think it’s the truth. Rather strange; a bit of a coincidence, but the truth.’
He nodded and made no comment.
‘And Salena’s story?’
Korpanski looked enquiringly at her and she gave him an explanation – of sorts.
‘The married man thing is a great way to stop your girl talking, Mike. It makes monkeys out of the women. They give them sex, everything, and get nothing back. It keeps them secretive and the man safe.’
‘Ah,’ Korpanski said.
‘Let’s get the birthday boys back in – all of them – separately. And we’ll start with Steve Shand, finder of the body.’
TWENTY
Steve Shand sauntered in, hands in pockets, attempting nonchalance but only succeeding in looking shifty and very uneasy. He spread his hands palms downwards flat on the table and bent forwards. ‘I know you’re going to try and pin this on me,’ he said, ‘just because I was the one who found Kayleigh. But I don’t know anything about Molly Carraway. I promise.’ He spoke earnestly, his eyes meeting Joanna’s full force. His expression might be bland, she reflected, but there was a suppressed anger too. He smelt faintly of a rather pleasant spicy deodorant which emphasized his very maleness.
Joanna had already decided to give the birthday boys a rough ride. A very rough ride. ‘But you were there on the night Molly disappeared?’
‘Yeah, but I was with my girlfriend.’ A wry smile. ‘She wasn’t going to let me out on my own again so I had to take her along.’
True love, Joanna thought. And an alibi.
‘Do you remember Molly on Friday? She was wearing a very noticeable bright red dress.’
‘I’ve already said I remember her.’
Joanna smiled and caught Korpanski’s eye.
‘So let’s return to Kayleigh Harrison, shall we? You danced with her the night she was allegedly raped.’ She was aware that the bald statement sounded very like an accusation.
‘I’ve already admitted that,’ Shand muttered sulkily. ‘She danced with just about everyone that night. Not just me, you know.’
‘And Molly?’
Shand looked surprised. ‘Was she there that night?’
‘Yes.’ Joanna looked down at her notes, ‘wearing “jeggings” and a white crop top.’
Shand looked half interested. ‘I do remember somebody dressed like that,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t half going it on the dance floor.’
‘Alone?’
Shand frowned. ‘Sort of. She didn’t seem to be with anyone particular. There was just a crowd of people all dancin’, not necessarily together.’
‘Did you dance with her that night?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t really remember whether I did or not. I don’t keep a tab on every girl I have a dance with. You kind of move around the room. And Claire was there.’ His brow was wrinkled as he eyed Joanna dubiously. ‘Know what I mean?’
‘Yes.’ She hesitated. ‘Can you answer me something, Steve?’
Shand looked wary.
‘When you first noticed Kayleigh, the morning you found her, did you recognize her?’
Shand shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘A girl shimmyin’ around the dance floor in a silver skirt looks nothing like a half-dead body slumped by a bin, half her clothes missin.’
‘But you saw the silver skirt?’
He nodded. ‘I still didn’t make the connection – not until later.’
‘And when you saw her that snowy morning, was your first thought that she had been raped?’
‘I don’t know.’ He obviously hadn’t thought of this. ‘No. Yes.’ He met Joanna’s eyes. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘She looked – abandoned, rather than sexy.’
She smiled at him. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘Thanks. You can go.’
‘So who’s next, Mike?’
Shaun Hennessey was finding it hard to contain his anger. He came blasting in, all guns blazing.
‘What’s the idea, dragging me in here again? I don’t know nothing about this bird who’s gon
e missing. Understand? I didn’t even know her.’
‘Think again, Mr Hennessey,’ Joanna said icily, making no attempt at politeness or even civility. ‘Either you or one of your buddies has something to do with this girl’s,’ she jabbed Molly’s picture, ‘disappearance. So either you tell me what you know or we shall keep you here for as long as it takes. Understand?’
Hennessey was not intimidated. ‘I understand perfectly,’ he said. ‘But we weren’t the only guys there that night on the prowl, you know. I don’t know why you keep coming back to us.’
‘Well, it was one of your buddies who discovered Kayleigh,’ Joanna said smoothly.
Hennessey was dismissive. ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ he said contemptuously.
‘You can’t pin anything on me or my mates. I saw the girls. OK? I had a few dances with the one you call Molly, the girl in the red dress, but I did not abduct her or rape her or anything else.’ He spread his hands out wide. ‘I didn’t even know her name until the story broke.’
‘And what about Kayleigh Harrison?’
‘What about Kayleigh Harrison?’ Hennessey’s lip curled. ‘She was a little slapper. Pissed as a fart and offering herself to all and sundry. I wouldn’t be surprised if any one of the fellows there that night would have raped her. She was so –’ his face made an expression of disgust – ‘available. You can’t blame a guy for takin’ what’s offered to him on a plate, you know.’
‘And abandoning her?’ Joanna felt her anger brewing up. ‘Leaving her to die?’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Hennessey said, quiet again now, as though he sensed her hostility.
Joanna leaned back in her chair. ‘So who was it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘OK, let’s leave it at that and move on to something or someone else, shall we? We have a witness who says that Molly Carraway was having an affair with a married man.’
Instantly Hennessey looked wary.
‘You’re almost married,’ Korpanski put in – right on cue.
But Hennessey merely shook his head. ‘I wasn’t having an affair with Molly Carraway or Kayleigh or anyone else,’ he said baldly.
‘So who was?’
‘Why are you picking on me and my mates?’ he asked again. ‘There were plenty of other guys in the club that night. Why us?’
‘A feeling,’ Joanna replied. ‘Just a feeling.’
Hennessey met her eyes without flinching. ‘You’re never going to make a charge stick on a “feeling”,’ he jeered. ‘You’re police. Not bloody clairvoyants.’
Joanna ignored the jibe and changed tack. ‘Molly Carraway’s parents are going spare,’ she said quietly. ‘They don’t even know if their daughter’s dead or alive. Have some pity on them, Shaun.’
Hennessey responded to her appeal. His face changed. Like frost in the sun his anger melted away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry but I can’t help you, Inspector.’
The three of them sat still, each wrapped in their own reflections. Joanna studied Hennessey’s face and knew they would get no more out of him.
‘You can go,’ she said.
Hennessey didn’t move.
‘I said,’ she repeated, ‘you can go. You’re free to go.’
Hennessey stood up, looked as though he wanted to say something, then walked out of the door.
Joanna looked at Mike. ‘So what do you make of that?’
‘He’s either telling the truth or—’
‘A half-truth, Mike,’ she said, adding, ‘and what’s the first rule of an investigation?’
He grinned. ‘Everyone tells lies?’
‘Exactly.’
He made a face at her. ‘Or I think what you once told me was that everyone tells at least one lie. They may not see it as a lie but it deflects us from the truth.’
‘Right.’
‘So who’s next?’
‘I didn’t ask Andrew Downey to come in,’ she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned he’s off the hook. And Pointer’s arranged to come in tomorrow. So, Clint Jones.’
Jones had a rolling gait, long arms. Ape-like. And of the birthday boys they’d seen so far he appeared the least troubled by being summoned back to the police station.
He sat right back in the chair and gave them a bland smile.
Joanna eyed him for a moment. ‘What did you think of Molly Carraway?’ she asked.
Jones had not been expecting this approach. He considered for a moment. ‘I didn’t know her.’
‘But you gained an impression?’
‘Nice,’ he said. ‘She seemed a nice girl.’ He smiled. ‘A rotten flirt – very sexy. Very beautiful.’
Joanna nodded. ‘And what do you think’s happened to her?’
Jones shrugged. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘someone’s got her.’
‘Kidnapped?’
Slowly he shook his head.
‘Did you see Molly leave the club last Friday?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
Joanna let him go then, but with a feeling that she was missing something.
‘Let’s take another look at the CCTV of people leaving the club,’ she said. ‘She must have left the club at some point.’
‘Well, she isn’t still there,’ Korpanski said. ‘We’ve had a thorough search of the premises.’
‘Quite.’
It had been a cold night, flakes of snow drifting in front of the camera like the snow on a Hollywood Christmas film. A few of the girls stood around, shivering, waiting for taxis or cars that picked them up. Even on poor quality CCTV film with no sound you could almost feel the cold. Some of the girls were wearing coats, but most weren’t. A few were sliding around on the icy surface in high heels, clutching on to one another, giggling. One fell right on her bottom and struggled back to her feet, still laughing. A couple of snowballs were lobbed into the air.
Then a couple came out: the girl muffled in a coat, her hair over her face, the man supporting her. Joanna peered closer. He was almost carrying her. And as Mike and Joanna watched the coat slipped and revealed a sliver of red dress. ‘That’s her,’ Joanna said. ‘That’s Molly.’ It was no wonder they had missed it before. It would have been hard to pick her out.
She slowed down the picture and sat with her chin on her palm. ‘He’s taking her,’ she mused.
Korpanski was watching too. ‘She could be drunk,’ he said, ‘or she could be drugged.’
‘She could even be practically dead.’
Both peered closer, looking for signs of life. But there were so many people milling around the club doors they couldn’t be sure. They could quite understand how on that night no one had really noticed Molly. The clubbers had been distracted by the snow. And now they had lost the view as revellers crowded around.
It was a sobering thought that this had been the last sighting of the girl.
They sat and looked at one another until the door burst open and DC Alan King stood in front of them. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I thought you were out. I thought the room was empty. Sorry,’ he said again.
The intrusion galvanised them into action.
‘Kayleigh’s still our key, Mike,’ Joanna said slowly. If we can persuade her to tell us the absolute truth we might find out who our perpetrator is. And Molly.’
They found Kayleigh at home with both her mother and her father. Once the two detectives had squeezed into the small sitting room it seemed that the walls bulged with the effort. Even the Klimt seemed to have expanded to fill any space, dominating the room and leaving little room for air. The inhabitant’s emotions were similarly intensified.
Peter Harrison was on the sofa, his daughter sitting very close to him. Kayleigh was wearing low-cut jeans, a T-shirt and furry lilac slippers and was snuggled in close to her father who seemed perfectly at ease. In contrast Christine, dressed smartly in a royal blue dress and flat black pumps, sat stiffly in the chair by the window, almost detached, outside the situation as though she sat behind a sheet of plate glass
.
Joanna observed the trio and sat down. In her father’s presence Kayleigh had blossomed. She shone with an inner happiness and new confidence. The three of them sat, waiting for Joanna to speak.
She spoke to Kayleigh first. ‘We know some of what happened the night you believed you were raped,’ she said, noting that neither of Kayleigh’s parents contradicted the statement. ‘We think the true story behind that night will help us find out what’s happened to Molly. So why don’t you tell me, again, exactly what you do remember.’ She wanted to advise the girl not to embellish her story with anything she was not certain of but she resisted the temptation. She didn’t want to influence Kayleigh’s story at all.
As though they had already discussed this scenario Kayleigh glanced at her father, who gave her an encouraging nod. ‘OK,’ she said, then gave an impish grin, which altered her face even more. Joanna had never noticed before that the girl had dimples. Kayleigh leaned back comfortably against her father and began. ‘I was chattin’ to this bloke at the bar, right? He seemed really friendly.’ She turned to give Peter Harrison a cheeky smile. ‘Quite attractive, I thought. From down London way. A bit older than me but he’d bin around.’ She lifted her eyebrows. ‘You know? I asked his name and he told me, Peter. We chatted some more. I started tellin’ him my dad was called Peter and he lived in London. He asked my name. I can’t remember which one of us twigged first me or him but I was well pissed by then. He’d kept buying me drinks.’ She looked vaguely proud of herself. ‘I said I was eighteen and a half and he believed me. Then he asked me some more questions, like my birthday and where me mum lived – stuff like that. When he realized I was his actual daughter he changed. He told me to get on home.’ She clutched his arm. ‘Got all Dad-like, gave me some money, told me to get a taxi and left me. But I didn’t go home. I went back into the club. I was sort of happy and a bit sad as well because he was my dad and I’d never remembered meeting him before though I must have done when I was a baby.’ She sucked in a deep sigh. ‘I thought how nice it would have been if we’d done things together, you know, gone walkin’ or shoppin’ or whatever blokes do with their daughters.’ She gave a sentimental smile at Harrison who, far from looking uncomfortable, seemed to be taking this all in – with relish.
A Velvet Scream Page 22
