Good Girls Don't Die

by Isabelle Grey

As Grace handed Ivo one of her cards, she reflected that he probably already knew her shoe size, never mind her email address. But nevertheless she felt awkward and embarrassed, as if something intimate had just passed between them, although to anyone passing by they were merely two people who’d apparently stopped on the pavement for a chat on their way to the office.

  Ivo left her to head back the way they’d come. As she set off towards the police station, she remembered – almost with a stab of joy – what he’d said about Roxanne. Her friend had never betrayed her! It had all been her own paranoia and stupidity, which left her with the terrible realisation that if she had only listened and trusted and shared when they’d met that evening in the coaching inn, instead of making ridiculous accusations, Roxanne might still be alive.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Grace tried not to look surreptitious as she slipped into the MIT office as unobtrusively as she could. She made it to her desk without meeting anyone’s eye; pity, contempt, embarrassment, she didn’t want to know what anyone thought of the Courier’s revelations about her marriage. Lance seemed to sense her purpose, for he gave her merely an ordinary casual Monday morning greeting. ‘OK?’

  Grace smiled her thanks. ‘Yes. Where are we up to?’

  ‘Matt Beeston should be up before the magistrates in London on rape charges as we speak. Then the plan is that he’ll be brought back to us. Keith’s talking to the CPS lawyers to see if we’ve got enough to charge him with murder.’

  Grace nodded.

  ‘And the surveillance team have reported that Pawel Zawodny is taking steps to put all four of his houses on the market,’ said Lance.

  ‘Well, if he can’t rent them,’ said Grace. ‘He told us it was always his intention to sell up and go home to Poland eventually.’

  ‘Or off to some country with no extradition treaty,’ said Lance darkly.

  ‘You still think he killed Polly?’

  Lance nodded. ‘Sure of it. We’d have found her otherwise.’

  Lance’s certainty gave her pause. Where was Polly? If she was right, and Danny had killed her, what had he done with her body? That inkling of doubt raised another: why would Danny have wanted to kill Rachel Moston, a young woman he barely knew?

  ‘Who interviewed Danny?’ she asked, ignoring Lance’s look of surprise at her sudden jump from Zawodny to Danny Tooley.

  ‘Me and Duncan. He stuck to the same story he told Ivo Sweatman. Nothing would budge him.’

  ‘And you don’t believe him?’

  Lance laughed. ‘Keith was all for arresting him for wasting police time! This story about saving Polly, it’s all in his head.’

  ‘But you checked it out, what he said?’

  ‘Of course.’ Lance sounded a little irritated. ‘Polly doesn’t show up on the CCTV from Ipswich railway station where Danny said he dropped her off, and all the reported sightings coming in are still random, from all over the country. None of them so far stack up. All her cash, credit card, mobile network and social media links remain inactive. Dead.’

  ‘What about Michael Tooley’s BMW?’

  Lance held up his hands. ‘Yeah, OK, we picked it up on CCTV in Colchester the night Polly went missing, but Danny says he was out drinking with his brother’s friends. We’re checking, obviously.’

  ‘When will you know?’

  ‘The army will get back to us in their own sweet time.’

  ‘I’m hoping I might get to speak to Michael Tooley,’ Grace told him. ‘One of the army wives promised to get word to him, though he hasn’t managed to make contact yet.’

  ‘Why do you need to speak to him? We’ve got the car.’

  Grace could see that Lance was losing patience with her. She looked around the room. The MIT office had a good buzz to it today in busy expectation of getting some positive results and successfully ending this first phase of the investigation. Even after the two suspects were charged, there’d still be plenty of work to do, but the fear – of failure, ridicule, another tragedy waiting to happen – would be gone. She understood why none of them would want her to tell them that they were wrong and should start over again.

  ‘Danny’s mother was an alcoholic,’ she said. ‘Twice they tried to take him into care, but he ran away, ran back to her. He missed out on his education so he could take care of her. His alcoholic mother was all he had. Polly and Rachel were both drunk. The bottles were about alcohol.’ As Grace made each point, her own earlier doubts evaporated.

  ‘Matt got women plastered so he could have sex with them,’ argued Lance. ‘Told himself that, if he was too rat-arsed to be responsible for what he was doing, it wasn’t rape.’

  ‘And Polly?’

  ‘Matt didn’t kill Polly. Pawel did. Look, Grace, I spent a good couple of hours running through Danny’s story with him. He’s a fantasist. Do you honestly think a sweet kid like Polly Sinclair is holed up somewhere, waiting for the heat to die down, knowing the hell her family must be going through? For two whole weeks?’

  ‘No. I think she’s dead.’

  ‘But these were confident, aggressive crimes, probably very well organised, with split-second timing. Not Danny’s style. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ Lance paused, clearly concerned that she’d take his opposition the wrong way. ‘Not unless you’re thinking of Anthony Perkins in Psycho, anyway!’

  Grace tried to smile. ‘Well, he’s not a psychopath, but he has been damaged. I think badly damaged.’

  ‘So Danny was in care, had an addict for a mother, so what? He wouldn’t have got near Rachel Moston that night. She’d have eaten him for dinner.’

  ‘That I agree with,’ said Grace. ‘And if he didn’t kill Rachel, then he’d have no reason to kill Roxanne. Yet I still think the vodka bottle, the wine bottle, the jacket under Rachel’s head –’ She frowned and let out a sigh of frustration. ‘Look, Lance, would you come with me to talk to Danny?’

  Lance shook his head. ‘They’re bringing Zawodny in. Sorry, but I want to be here, be first in line to interview him.’

  ‘Fair enough. But, please, don’t forget Danny’s crush on Polly was weird enough for him to come up with this whole rescue fantasy, this powerful wish for her still to be alive.’ Grace almost added that Ivo was suspicious of Danny, too, but caught herself in time: seriously bad idea to admit she’d been passing the time of day with Ivo Sweatman! ‘I think we’d be crazy not to take at least one more look at him,’ she said instead.

  It was Lance’s turn to glance quickly around the office. ‘First off, I really do think that Zawodny is our man. He killed Polly. He may not have meant to but, if you ask me, thanks to him she’s feeding the fishes. And Matt Beeston’s a nasty piece of work, more than capable of the other two killings. And second’ – Lance lowered his voice – ‘you’ll be doing yourself no favours right now if you stick your neck out. No one else is going to run with you on this. You’re new here. You have a history. You were talking to a journalist, even if the chief con decided to let it go. Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted she did!’ he added hurriedly. ‘I really am. But you must realise that you’ve seriously pissed off Colin Pitman. And I very much doubt he’s a good enemy to have.’

  ‘I’ve pissed him off?’ demanded Grace. A dream she’d had last night came rushing back. It was one she’d had several times since Trev’s mates had taken him away in a police van, a nightmare in which there was something stuck to her that she couldn’t get rid of, no matter what she did, how hard she tried. She was beginning to realise that it was not about rejection or punishment, but shame at her own stupidity for ever imagining it would be all right, ever supposing that she deserved to have her life work out OK. And now, did she honestly believe that the rest of the team were getting it wrong and she was the only one to see clearly? Or was she, as Trev, Colin and the others had repeatedly told her, obsessed with her own bloody-minded ego? Still out to prove that she was right?

  She realised that Lance had a hand on her arm. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean that. But’ –
he moved even closer and lowered his voice even further – ‘there’s been a rumour this morning that Colin could be disciplined over his failure to investigate that assault on the prisoner in the van back in Kent. Your ex-husband confirmed to Ivo Sweatman that Superintendent Pitman was aware of it and failed to investigate. So he’ll be out to discredit you any way he can. Seriously, you really do have to watch your back.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’ Grace’s heart did a little leap in hope that, however vindictive Colin might prove to be, the whole sorry mess might finally start to unravel. Meanwhile, she had to decide whether she really wanted to stand out against every one of her new colleagues.

  Lance must have seen her uncertainty, for he patted her arm. ‘Get some evidence,’ he told her. ‘Look, Grace, you and I disagree; that’s fine. Who knows, maybe I’m wrong. But you need evidence.’

  ‘Can you cover for me if I disappear for an hour or two?’

  ‘Go!’

  On her way out through the car park, Grace saw Pawel Zawodny getting out of a police car, escorted by two officers. His clothes and hair were dusty, as if they’d pulled him off a job and not given him a chance to change or even wash, but he stood up straight, his expression calm. She was too close to pretend she hadn’t seen him, so she greeted him politely as she walked past.

  ‘One day maybe I’ll understand why a woman like you would want to do such a dirty job,’ he said, looking at her sadly.

  One of the officers caught Grace’s eye and gave a tiny shake of the head. In any case, she knew better than to engage with such a remark and kept walking. Yet she felt a pang of guilt. It seemed to her that in two short weeks Pawel had been robbed of that golden edge of self-assurance with which he’d looked her up and down on her first morning with the Essex force, as though their suspicions and accusations had stolen something vital from him. But she beat down her feeling of regret. She owed him nothing. He was a suspect in a murder inquiry. And she had a job to do.

  FIFTY-THREE

  In pride of place on the tiled mantelpiece that surrounded a flame-effect electric fire was a framed 6x4” colour print of the photograph Ivo had shown Grace earlier this morning of Marie Tooley with her son. Danny placed an old-fashioned wooden tray down on the smoked-glass coffee table, then sat beside her on the couch. He wore the same kind of grey trousers and white shirt that he wore to work. He poured tea from a brown pot covered with a knitted tea cosy made to look like a country cottage, with flowers round the door and a red chimney as a bobble on top; the milk jug had roses on it, and he apologised for having no sugar. As Grace accepted a cup and saucer, she wondered where his good manners had come from, if perhaps there had once been grandparents on the scene.

  She leaned back against the lumpy cushions of the dark-brown needlecord couch. ‘So is this where you sat with Polly?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered warily.

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Not much. Books. It was late and she was tired.’

  ‘So had you arranged to meet that Friday evening or did you just bump into her in town? Or, given how upset she’d been, when she came into the bookshop to apologise to you that afternoon, maybe you were keeping an eye on her? Making sure she was safe?’

  ‘She knew I’d always look out for her.’

  ‘And you gave her a lift home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was kind. But you brought her here rather than back to her place?’

  ‘I’ve told all this to the other policemen.’

  ‘I know, Danny, and I’m really grateful to you for going over it again.’ Grace sipped her tea, looking around the threadbare lounge. ‘Tell me, did Polly ever invite you to her house? It can’t be far from here.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘So did you ever go there?’

  ‘I liked it when she came here.’

  ‘So when did she tell you that she wanted to disappear for a while?’

  ‘She’d seen Dr Beeston again in the bar that night, and that upset her.’

  ‘So did she first mention it in the car, or when you were sitting here with her?’

  ‘It must’ve been in the car. She didn’t want to go back to her house.’

  ‘She’d been drinking quite heavily, hadn’t she? You didn’t think maybe this plan to disappear was just the booze talking?’

  Danny put his cup and saucer neatly back on the tea tray. ‘I made her some tea, told her we could talk about it all calmly in the morning, but her mind was made up.’

  ‘Where did she sleep?’

  ‘Upstairs. Your tea’s going cold.’ He stood up, fidgety and nervous. ‘Shall I get you some hot water?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ Grace sat quite still, waiting to see how Danny would deal with his agitation.

  ‘I don’t use the front bedroom, so I gave her my bed. I can show you, if you like.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  ‘I slept down here on the couch.’

  Grace smiled. ‘Like a proper gentleman.’ She got to her feet, pushing herself up awkwardly from the saggy foam cushions.

  She followed him up the narrow staircase and into the little back bedroom. It was furnished as if for a child, with a single bed and matching single white melamine wardrobe and chest of drawers. There were more books and a couple of framed black-and-white photos on the walls that she recognised from Ikea; one of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the other of Brooklyn Bridge. The sheets and duvet cover, too, though faded from frequent laundering, were cheerful Scandinavian patterns: she wondered if someone had taken Danny shopping or whether these were the spoils of a solitary trip in his brother’s illicitly borrowed car. But any sense of pity she had for him was swiftly overlaid by the acute awareness that Polly may have died here. Grace simply couldn’t imagine the young woman electing to sleep here, given that her own bed in Station Road was barely five minutes’ walk away. Unless she’d not been sober enough to get there. Or dead. The thought made the hairs on the back of Grace’s neck stand up.

  ‘So did you, like, lend her a toothbrush and stuff?’ she asked as cheerfully as she could, and watched Danny struggle to maintain the rosy fiction he’d offered Ivo of how he’d lent Polly some of his clothes and made sure she had everything she needed for her desperate adventure. The more questions Grace asked, the more she felt as if she were taunting him with his own lies; she could see that here in the reality of these rooms it became harder and harder for Danny to believe in the fairy-tale he’d spun himself of how he’d rescued his damsel in distress. Somehow, late that night, his fantasy had come to an abrupt end, and now he couldn’t bear to admit to himself what he’d done to the girl he loved.

  He was reluctant to let her look in the front bedroom, but she insisted politely until he had to open the door. She didn’t go in: if this house was a crime scene, then the less she contaminated it the better. Even if there were no bloodstains, nor even the signs of a struggle because Polly had been strangled or smothered, there might still be other evidence here that would enable them to interrogate whatever account Danny gave of Polly’s presence.

  The bedroom had been completely stripped, right back to the floorboards; only the pale, sprigged wallpaper remained, with unfaded shadows where furniture or pictures had once been, along with old spattered stains that had been inadequately wiped off. Grace wondered with distaste if they were the ghostly marks of Marie Tooley’s vomit.

  ‘Was this your mother’s room?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s where she died,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry. You said she was ill and you took care of her. What was wrong with her?’

  His reply was reluctant. ‘She had problems. She was depressed.’

  Danny immediately turned away and went downstairs. Grace took a last look around and then followed him back down to the dingy front room. Through the window, keeping to the public highway at the end of the driveway, she could see the little knot of photographers who’d been there when she arrived. Th
ey’d snapped her, just in case, but hadn’t been unduly interested. She sat down again on the uncomfortable couch.

  ‘Danny, we have CCTV images of Polly in Colchester on the night you brought her back here. She was so drunk that she could hardly stand up.’

  ‘It was the night air. It went to her head.’

  ‘What do you think about young women who get as drunk as that, like Polly was that night?’

  ‘They can’t help it.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘It’s not their fault. It’s not what they’re really like. Polly just needed someone to take care of her.’

  ‘Just as well you were there for her, then. Tell me, do you drink?’

  ‘No, never.’

  Grace pointed to the photograph on the mantelpiece. ‘Is that your mum?’

  Although Danny nodded and smiled, Grace saw his body tense up.

  ‘Before she got ill,’ he said.

  ‘How old are you there? Six, seven?’

  ‘Yes. She was a good mother. She loved me.’

  ‘I’m sure she did. What were you doing? Looks like you were having a picnic or something.’

  ‘She liked picnics. When she was well, we used to do all sorts of nice things together.’

  Danny put his hands around his knees and hugged them to him. As he began to reminisce, Grace could see that he had all but forgotten she was there. The longer he talked about cherished treats and remembered outings, the more she thought about the catalogue of neglect, chaos and degradation that must have been Danny’s actual childhood.

  As he showed her out twenty minutes later, standing back in the shadow of the door so the photographers couldn’t catch a decent shot of him, she thanked him for the tea and was rewarded with his familiar sweet smile.

  She could easily have walked down to the quay, but decided to move her car so she wouldn’t have to face the cameras again when she returned for it. The car park wasn’t too crowded on a Monday, and she made her way down to the water and sat on a bench looking out across the jingling masts of the boats to the mudflats on the far side of the river. What she’d learned was hardly going to satisfy Lance: it wasn’t evidence. Yet she was more certain than ever, from Danny’s body language, his evasions, his hopeless loyalty to his mother, that he had murdered Polly Sinclair.