by Susan Hill
She stared at her hands, thinking. But she’d been asked before, a few days after, and she hadn’t remembered. Why would she remember now?
Then she looked up quickly. ‘Wednesday’s market day in Lafferton,’ she said.
‘Yes. Is that significant?’
‘We walked through the market and Daniel wanted one of those metallic balloons someone was selling. I said no and pushed on so he got in a strop. He was still in a strop when we got to the park … I think that was why he got out of the buggy and started to run to the pond. I think it was … it might have been. But that could easily have been another day. I am sorry.’ She was. Her face was downcast, her eyes troubled on his face.
‘Have they – has she been found?’
‘No. I’m afraid not.’
‘It’s such a long time ago. Are you still looking for her? It’s great if you still are, I didn’t think inquiries went on so long.’
Simon got to his feet. ‘They don’t usually … we’re just following up some new leads. Mrs Stoker, if you remember anything else – especially something that might make you sure it was that Wednesday that you saw Kimberley Still – please ring me. This is my mobile number, ring me at any time. And even if it seems trivial to you, or a bit vague, it might not to us. Tell me anyway. And thanks for seeing me – I wouldn’t have disturbed you if it wasn’t important.’
On the doorstep, she said, ‘I hope you find her, I really do. I will think hard because she was so nice. She was so nice.’
Fifty-two
‘Mrs Still? This is Dorcas Brewer from the Gazette. You were kind enough to speak to me about your daughter a few weeks ago.’
‘Yes, of course. Hello.’
‘Can you spare me a few minutes?’
‘Of course. Did you want to come round?’
‘I’d like to but this is something I have to get in today – though another time would be lovely, thank you. I’m actually doing a twice-weekly diary at the moment, under my name. It’s catching up on local events and people, looking back on things that have recently been in the news? For example, I don’t know if you read about little Jensen Brownsword? He’s the six-year-old who’s been fighting an awful cancer and they’ve been desperately searching for a bone marrow donor?’
Everything Dorcas said, Marion thought, sounded like a question because her voice rose up at the end.
‘Well, we heard yesterday that a match has been found and it looks as if they’ll be able to get Jensen into hospital and give him the bone marrow next week? It’s very hopeful, and local people raised a lot of money for Jensen so it’s quite a news item. That sort of thing, you know? And I thought I might do a paragraph about Kimberley, just as a reminder?’
‘There’s nothing new though – at least, I haven’t been told anything by the police.’
‘Then let’s remind them … give them a shot in the arm. I like to follow up on stories, people don’t forget. Can I say you’re still anxious for the police to reopen the case?’
‘Of course … and I am. Whether it would do any good or not I have my doubts.’
‘I think it always does good to keep up the pressure, Marion. OK, so if you’re happy? Nothing we didn’t cover when we met, nothing you need to worry about. But let’s keep it in the public eye, all right? Maybe just give me a word about how you are at the moment? Help me colour it in?’
‘Not any different, really.’ She hesitated, wondering whether to mention her visit to the prison and immediately decided against it. ‘I’m still waiting, I’m still hoping and praying. Life goes on, of course it does, but I miss Kimberley dreadfully. I’d give anything and do anything to know what happened to her.’
‘That’s great, Marion, thank you so much. It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper.’
It was.
Fifty-three
He had not expected the same luck with Stan Barnard as he had with Natalie. There had been no record of his address or age in the files, just his name, but it was the only one listed for Lafferton, and he was apparently still at 53 St Mark’s Road seven months ago.
The small terraced houses in the grid of streets known as the Apostles had mainly been bought by young couples over the past ten years, updated and extended, but one or two were still lived in by people who had gone there in the 1960s and 70s when they were first married. They had liked where they were, brought up families in them without feeling the need, or having the spare money, to enlarge them, and you could tell them at a glance. Number 53 was clearly one. There was a small privet hedge, a painted gate, a short path up to the front door. The curtains were drawn and the sound of a television with the volume turned up came from the back.
Serrailler knocked hard on the brass lion’s head. It gleamed in the light from the street lamp and the doorstep had recently been whited. Nothing spoke more clearly of an older, houseproud inhabitant.
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, let me find the … Who is it?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Serrailler, Lafferton CID.’
‘Oh my heavens above. But how do I know you are? Anybody could say that, couldn’t they?’
‘If you come to the window of your front room and pull the curtain back I’ll show you my warrant card and my face.’
‘That’s fair enough, fair enough. You come to the window then.’
After peering as closely as he could, the man let the curtain fall and came back to open the door.
‘Come in, sir. Come in. I didn’t mean to sound suspicious.’
‘You should.’
The small hall was as it must have been the day he moved in. The staircase had been boxed in, the ceiling was Artexed, the radiator panel was painted dark crimson. In the front room, the fireplace had also been boxed, in the 1960s Simon guessed, and the wallpaper had decorative columns and borders in the same pattern but different colours. There was a china cabinet with massed figurines on the top shelf, trophies and cups below.
‘Sit down, please sit down, sir. And what can I do for you? I don’t own a car, I am too old to have to pay for a TV licence, so I’m at a loss really.’
‘Neither of those. Firstly, can I just make sure – you are Stanley Gordon Barnard?’
‘I am certainly. And my late wife was Gwendolen Mary Barnard but she passed on a long time ago now – nearly eleven years. So I am the sole resident.’
‘I want to ask you about something that happened around five and a half years ago, Mr Barnard. I know that’s a while but I hope you can help all the same. Do you remember having seen this young woman at any time?’
Stanley Barnard must have been in his late eighties. His hearing was aided by large earpieces, he was a man who had been tall but who had shrunk in old age, with bent shoulders, and his eyesight was poor. He took some time to find his spectacles in their case, take them out, polish the lenses and put them on. Simon doubted if he would recall anything but the moment he took the newspaper photograph he said, ‘Yes! I certainly do remember and I remember very clearly. I was very upset when I read about her disappearing and then do you know, only the other day, I read something in the paper again and it brought it all back. I was upset again to think she’d never been found. That sort of thing destroys your faith in humanity, sir. She was a lovely-looking young woman. Lovely. I didn’t have daughters only the one son and he went before the wife, cancer, but I can still imagine what it must be like to lose a young daughter like this. I certainly can.’
He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes, shaking his head as he did so.
‘Do you have any news of her then? Though I must say it’s taken long enough for you to get round to me. I don’t know why, you had my name and address. I don’t mean you personally, sir, I don’t recognise you – it was a much younger policeman I spoke to at the time.’
‘When exactly was that, Mr Barnard?’
‘Well, at the park, the Adelaide Road Park. You know the park?’
‘I do. So did you see the girl – Kimberley Still – at that park?’
>
‘I told the young policeman.’
‘Mr Barnard, it was, as you say, a few years ago and I wasn’t on the case, I’m just picking up the threads and looking into the files. So would you mind starting from the beginning?’
‘I go to that park almost every day and I have done since my wife passed away … winter and summer, except if it’s pouring with rain, there’s no enjoyment in that. I don’t mind the cold, you can wrap up and the park’s quite sheltered. So I’m there most days, usually late morning or early afternoon – the children come out of school at half past three and then there’s a lot of them in the park with their mothers and their friends, playing around. We get the babies in the morning more, the babies and toddlers, I love to see them and hear them chatter. Some of them know me and wave to me or say hello, though I don’t encourage them at all, that wouldn’t be right, they don’t know me – I would never give them anything, sweeties or anything, but I wave and say hello if they do. I go mainly for someone to chat to, really, and there are plenty of those, plenty of us regulars. She was a regular, the young lady – at lunchtime only, and sometimes with others, sometimes on her own. She brought her lunch. A lot do that. So, I’m generally in the Adelaide Road Park at some point of the day. I take a paper, I buy a cup of tea from the corner, though the best one shut down, you know, so I get it from the big coffee place. Only I get tea. Sometimes a bit of cake but not always. That’s how I recognised her straight away, when her picture was in the paper.’
‘Do you remember when you last saw her?’
‘I do, I remember very well.’
‘That’s good news … would you tell me about it?’
Barnard sat up suddenly. ‘I apologise, can I offer you a hot drink? I know you won’t take alcohol but a cup of tea?’
‘No thank you, I had a coffee just before I came out. But thank you all the same.’
‘I wouldn’t like to think I hadn’t so much as offered. Still … now then, that poor young woman. I said I was in Adelaide Road Park most days – still am, still am – and this day I remember because there weren’t so many about, only a young mother with a pram pushchair thing came in, and all of a sudden I saw her little boy start running towards the pond. Well …’
‘I’ve just been to talk to her and she remembers that too.’
‘You have? Good, so that will back me up, show I’m not making things up.’
‘I would never suppose that you were, Mr Barnard.’
‘Stan. Are you allowed to call me Stan?’
‘I certainly am.’
‘Now, this little chap – if I’d been quicker off the mark I’d have jumped up and been after him but I wasn’t so near and the young lady – that young lady in the paper – no sooner saw it than she was after him and grabbed hold of him just as he got to the edge of the pond. You don’t realise how fast they can go and the poor mother was beside herself, she was trying to anchor the pushchair thingy and go after him, it’s a big load being a young mother with two little ones, you know. I see them every day. So, they stood and chatted for a minute, I can see them now. But the mother gathered herself up and left, probably worried he’d do it again, and that lass – Kimberley – yes, this one here – she was just sitting down on the bench again and getting out a paper bag with her lunch in when he came through the gateway at the side just nearby and went up to her and spoke and they went off and in a bit of a hurry too.’
Simon sat forward. ‘Just a moment … you said “he” – did you recognise the man?’
‘No, no. Never seen him but I did watch them go and I think he had a car parked outside so maybe he was a friend – maybe she had to go somewhere urgently. I wouldn’t know.’
‘Can you describe the man?’
‘Oh dear. Well, my memory isn’t so good –’
‘Your memory is excellent, Stan. Just think back – go over the scene in your mind. Close your eyes if that helps and take your time. It’s surprising what you can recall if you give yourself a chance.’
The old man did exactly as he was told – he was of a generation who obeyed the police automatically, Simon thought, and he found it both touching and slightly disconcerting, but he almost held his breath, willing his memory to surface, as Stan put his head back, closed his eyes and was still and silent.
‘I can recall a bit but it isn’t very clear, I’m afraid.’
‘Never mind – just tell me as much as you can.’
‘Not tall and not bald and not old but not young either. That’s too many “nots” for you, isn’t it?’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘Not hairy – I mean to say, not a beard or anything like that. No glasses. Now I think he had no jacket either but I couldn’t swear to that. He might have had a jacket. It was a sunny day but maybe I’m just making that up – I had a jacket on, I know that. But then, I always do, rain or shine.’
‘If he wasn’t bald, can you have a guess at the colour of his hair?’
Stan closed his eyes again briefly, but then he shook his head. ‘Not coming,’ he said. ‘Could have been anything, but then again, if it had been down to his shoulders, say, like some of these young chaps, I’d have remembered that, wouldn’t I? Or if it had been like yours, colour of wheat in the sun … do you have Scandinavian origins?’
‘Not that I know of but people often ask. You say the man went up and spoke to Kimberley Still – are you quite sure that it was her, not some other young woman?’
‘I’m quite sure of that because so far as I can remember there weren’t any others – there were one or two older ladies, but unless I’m very mistaken, which I am not … no, it was her, because it caught my eye, you know, having seen her before.’
‘Did she appear to know the man?’
‘That I couldn’t say. She might have known him … she might not.’
‘But she got up and went out of the park with him?’
‘Yes, and in quite a hurry, as if she’d been told something was urgent, if you follow me.’
‘Yes. So she went willingly?’
‘It seemed so.’
‘There was no question of his forcing her to go with him, or of her being at all reluctant?’
‘Not as I remember. It was all quick, you know, not any talk or arguing.’
‘Did you see if he had a car and if she got into it?’
‘No, I couldn’t see anything once they’d gone through the gateway.’
‘Did you hear a car drive off?’
‘Well, you couldn’t, could you? I mean, that is a nice little park, it isn’t full of people making a noise or anything, but it is in the centre of town, I don’t think you could hear just the one car. No.’
‘Mr – Stanley, why didn’t you tell all this to the police when they interviewed you?’
‘They didn’t. That’s to say, they were in the park handing out these leaflets and I looked and said I thought I recognised the young woman, I thought I might have seen her that day but it could have been a different day, of course it could – he took my name and address and said they might need to talk to me again. But they never did.’
‘Are you sure? They didn’t phone you asking when you’d be at home?’
‘I don’t think they took my phone number. I don’t think they did but of course I could be wrong about that … it is quite a while ago, you know. I’m surprised at how much I have remembered to be honest with you.’
‘I’m impressed at how much too. Now one question more and this really is very important … this day, the day you saw Kimberley in the park, the day a man walked up to her and spoke and she went away with him – was this the last time you saw her, in the park or anywhere else? Or might you have seen her again?’
‘I definitely didn’t see her again. I know that much because I was there all that week – it was beautiful weather after that day, we had lovely warm sunshine, the place was quite busy especially at lunchtimes, and for some reason I looked out for her – no, no, I didn’t do that, but I noticed tha
t she wasn’t there – there are a few people I see regularly, we even chat, we know each other and I’d miss them if they weren’t there for a few days. Dare I say they might even miss me. I didn’t chat to this young woman, I’m not even sure if we ever passed the time of day. But I know I didn’t see her again and it wasn’t many days after that the police were round with their leaflets and then I saw it on the local television news. No, that was the last time.’
‘Have you any idea why the police didn’t get in touch with you – even come and find you in the park and talk to you?’
‘No. Thinking about it, maybe they should have done but I didn’t really … I suppose they must have had other, what do you call it, “leads”?’
‘And you didn’t think to go to the police station yourself and speak to someone about it?’
There was a pause. Stanley Barnard’s face clouded over and when he looked up at Serrailler next he had tears in his eyes. ‘This is terrible. I should have done that, shouldn’t I? I suppose I just didn’t think it was important. I don’t know. I should have done though. I should have realised and done my duty. Have I done her harm? Is it my fault?’
The photographs of Lee Russon Simon pulled up from the files when he got home were mugshots but there was enough for him to check off Stanley’s list of negatives – not bearded, not fair-haired. He checked with information from the two murders for which he was now serving life and found his details. White, stocky, not tall. None of it got him very far, only enough for Simon not to eliminate him altogether at this stage. Why the original team hadn’t followed up on Stanley Barnard he was at a loss to understand. ‘Leave no stone unturned,’ his first DI had said almost every day, ‘and no pebble either.’ The first stone was CCTV.
Ten minutes later, he was pulling up at the side entrance to the park. The gates, both here and at the front, were closed at six o’clock. There were no CCTV cameras. He walked down the road, alongside the high hedge that surrounded the park. Opposite the entrance were two blocks of flats, set well back and with parking areas in front and, in one case, at the side as well and this block also had security TV. He crossed over. Privately owned cameras were often dummies, especially on single houses, but this one looked real and seemed to be switched on, in that there was a green light blinking steadily.
