One Dead Witness

by Nick Oldham

  He drove off, failing to notice the black figure in the shadows at the end of the road, stepping out to watch Henry’s tail-lights disappear around the corner.

  As Danny expected, Trent subsequently denied murdering Claire when the allegation was put to him on Tuesday morning. Although he had denied everything else, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, his denial of Claire’s murder seemed to be true. With increasing anguish, the police concluded that maybe, possibly, probably ... then definitely. . . there was another child-killer on the loose.

  When Danny eventually fell asleep it was half-past midnight. Thursday morning. In Miami, it was seven-thirty in the evening.

  Myrna Rosza finished crying for the moment.

  She was in her personal restroom adjoining her office, glaring at herself in the mirror over the wash-basin. Emotions tumbled across each other inside her, but she had regained outwards control of herself. She flicked on the tap, filled the basin with hot water and washed her face, removing the stained make-up from around her eyes and cheeks.

  Then she spent almost twenty minutes carefully reapplying it, after which she felt more positive about things and life in general. She completed the process by brushing and spraying her hair into place.

  When she reviewed the new woman, she attempted a smile which lapsed fairly quickly at the prospect of the immediate hours ahead of her. Home was not a place to which she desired to return. It would be empty, cold and forbidding. On the spur of the moment she darted back into the office, picked up the phone and dialled the Fontainbleau Hilton on Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, booked a room, and a table at one of the restaurants. She slammed the phone back down, put on her top coat and walked purposefully out of the office.

  The elevator to the basement was empty. It stopped with a bump and opened its doors to reveal a vast, deserted, underground parking lot. Since Kruger’s death, the building superintendent had allowed her to park there - at a cost.

  Moments later, the tyres of the Lexus were squealing across the concrete floor. She hit the exit ramp, suspension bouncing, drove through the raised security gate, then out onto the road where the rain hit the hood and windshield like a bucket full of grit. Myrna fumbled for the wiper control, then felt the thud of a body on the front of the car. She slammed on, unable to see properly, but aware a person had rolled off the hood onto the road.

  ‘Shit,’ Myrna cried. She leapt out - and at the back of her mind thought she could be stepping into a heist, a robbery, God knew what. At the front of the car lay the crumpled form of a female who was already rising to her hands and knees. She was totally drenched. In her hand was a rolled-up newspaper.

  ‘Good God, are you okay?’ Myrna bent low to assist.

  The female looked up.

  ‘You!’ Myrna exclaimed.

  To have had that long white wine and soda immediately before coming to bed was a pretty big mistake, Danny discovered not long after falling asleep. Her bladder called to her pitifully, ‘Empty me!’ in such a pathetic tone she could not ignore it.

  With a grunt of frustration, she rolled out of bed, padded to the loo and back. When her head hit the pillow, she expected to return to sleep immediately. No chance.

  Uncontrollably her mind clicked into gear and refused to get out of it. She found herself tossing and turning, desperately trying to get to sleep. She constantly re-ran images and conversations of the week through her mind’s eye and it began to drive her mad.

  She pictured herself sitting next to Ruth Lilton on their settee, clasping the woman’s delicate hands in her own, offering support and reassurance, whilst at the same time bringing her up-to-date with the investigation.

  ‘We initially believed the man we had in custody for the other matters was responsible for Claire’s death. He denied it and, quite honestly, it looks as though he may not have killed her.’

  ‘He must have, he must have,’ Ruth Lilton sobbed.

  ‘I can appreciate how you must feel like that,’ Danny said softly.

  ‘You can’t appreciate fuck all,’ Joe Lilton snarled into Danny’s face. ‘You don’t know fuck all about how we’re feeling; we’ve lost a daughter. Murdered. How can you have the bottle to sit there and say “I can appreciate”?’ He mimicked Danny’s voice.

  ‘Joe!’ Ruth said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Well, bloody police ... you’re telling us that bastard who’s locked up didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’m telling you,’ Danny said stonily, trying not to rise to him, even though her blood had passed boiling point.

  ‘Well, who did kill her? C’mon, tell us. Do your job.’

  Danny’s eyes played over his face. ‘We don’t know yet, but it’s only a matter of time. We will be able to get a DNA profile from the bodily fluids her attacker left in her. We’ll catch whoever did it, never fear. That’s a promise.’

  Joe went silent at these words. Then with a snort of contempt he threw up his arms and stormed out of the room.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ Ruth apologised.

  ‘It’s okay. He’s upset and angry,’ said Danny.

  Danny rolled over in bed. Sweat started to dribble where her thighs met. The bed was hotting up the more she was unable to sleep.

  And the next image that came to her mind was the meeting she and Henry had had with the pathologist who had performed Claire’s post mortem. His name was Baines and it was apparent he and Henry knew each other well.

  ‘Quite a few things of interest to you, H,’ Baines said. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Old sperm in her uterus - probably about four days. On its last legs, or flippers, as you might say.’

  ‘Wow,’ Henry said.

  ‘Mmm, she was not a virgin. Probably hadn’t been one for some time, by all indications.’

  Danny closed her eyes. ‘She was eleven years old.’

  Baines nodded.

  ‘Anything else?’ Henry asked.

  Baines opened his mouth and reeled off other interesting things which were lost on Danny who sat through the rest of the meeting numb, the voices of the two men simply a meaningless background to the physical sickness she was feeling on Claire’s behalf.

  Suddenly Danny cut back into the conversation. ‘Can you pinpoint exactly how old the sperm is, Doctor?’ she demanded to know.

  Her eyes flipped open. ‘Damn,’ she said out loud to the bedroom ceiling. ‘Why the hell can’t I get to sleep? What have I done wrong? Come on, God, tell me.’ She flicked off the duvet and went to the loo again.

  Myrna stood by the door of the restroom next to her office and knocked tentatively.

  ‘Some towels for you,’ she called.

  There was a murmur from the other side of the door which Myrna took to be some form of permission to enter. She opened the door and stepped in. The shower was hissing and steam rose towards the extractor fan. Through the frosted glass Myrna could see the naked, but indistinct shape beyond, soaping down.

  ‘They’re just outside the shower door.’ She dropped them onto the floor.

  Another murmur was the response.

  Myrna retreated from the restroom. Back in the office she sat on her leather chair and tried to work out what the hell was going on. On the desk-top lay the newspaper the female had been carrying. It was soaking wet, near to deterioration. Myrna considered tossing it into the wastebasket. Before she did, she unrolled it carefully.

  It was a five-day-old edition of the British Daily Mail. Not an unusual sight in Miami, where British newspapers were common on the streets and sold at many stores. Myrna flattened it carefully so the sports headlines were uppermost. She turned the paper over and read the news headlines.

  The irony of it was that, through snoring loudly, Danny woke herself up. She cursed. She had been to sleep and then, fuck it, she had woken herself up. This, she thought, was going to be one of those nights.

  She rolled over, tugged the duvet tight around her head and shut her eyes. It was one o’clock. In six hours she had to be u
p. Six hours ... if only she could get six hours, that would be bliss - almost a normal night’s sleep. Six lovely hours. . .

  The restroom door opened and Myrna looked up.

  The sex-chatline telephonist, who had been a vital witness against Bussola, the girl by the name of Tracey Greenwood stood there, one of the bath towels folded around her, another smaller towel around her head. Myrna had to admit she looked a thousand times better than she had done an hour before when Myrna had brought her into the office.

  ‘Hi. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You should really go to hospital.’

  ‘I’m fine, nothing’s broken; you didn’t run into me, I jumped onto your bonnet.’

  ‘Bonnet?’

  ‘Bonnet - hood - you know.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I see. Bonnet’s English.’

  ‘Yeah, summat like that.’

  Myrna stood up. ‘Come on, sit over here.’ She pointed to the sofa. ‘I’ve got some coffee on, but I’ve only been able to find some cookies to eat. There’s not much food around the office.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’m not really hungry.’

  The girl pulled the bath towel tight and tottered across the office to the sofa. Myrna watched her out of the corner of her eye whilst she fixed two cups of steaming coffee from the filter machine. The girl was deadly thin, her legs seemingly no fatter than a ballpoint pen; her shoulders protruded bones and her arms were like twigs, dry-looking and capable of being snapped. She looked anorexic and like a drug addict. The mainline marks on the inside of her arms and the backs of her knees were prominent. Some had scabs on them, where blunt, rusted or pre-used needles had been inserted. It would not be long before she was dead.

  Myrna handed her a coffee. She took it gratefully, hands a-quiver. She piled numerous lumps of brown sugar in then added cream.

  Myrna drank hers back. She lowered herself down onto the opposite end of the couch.

  The girl sipped her sweet brew. Her eyes traversed the office and the view across Miami. ‘Nice office,’ she commented.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I threw myself at you.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  A massive shiver suddenly convulsed the girl’s whole body. She almost spilled her coffee. ‘Oh God,’ she gasped, ‘I really need a fix.’ She looked hopefully at Myrna.

  ‘Coffee’s as far as I go.’

  ‘I really wanted to see Kruger.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So why have you come?’ Myrna demanded because she suddenly remembered that Kruger’s death might have been prevented if only this girl hadn’t disappeared. ‘You’re partly responsible for him dying. If you’d stayed and testified in the first place, Bussola might still be in the can.’

  ‘No way. Don’t try to pin that one on me.’

  ‘Okay - so I ask again: why are you here?’

  ‘I know something,’ she said. A look of horror crossed her face and remained there. Myrna studied her carefully and thought the girl’s expression was the result of seeing something so painful that even its memory brought back terror. The girl’s head flicked quickly towards Myrna; her opaque, lifeless eyes produced tears which tumbled down her white cheeks. ‘I know something,’ she repeated with a sob of anguish. ‘Something terrible.’

  Danny was in a sort of dream-filled twilight zone, somewhere between sleep and deep sleep, images of fifteen years ago zipping through her mind. She was walking towards a door. From behind the door were voices. Angry. Raised. Arguing. Danny was in uniform. Her police car was parked behind her. There were white chippings underneath her feet, scrunching as she walked. She got closer to the door. The voices became louder. A man and a woman. The words had meant nothing to her. Merely jumbled. A big disagreement, possibly the first stages of domestic violence.

  At the time she only half-listened to what was said, yet the words must have lodged themselves into her mind subconsciously. Like someone half-seeing a number plate and subsequently dredging it out of the recycle bin of the memory whole and complete.

  But the mind is a curious organ. Often it stores things the owner doesn’t even know are there. The skill is in the process of recall. Sometimes it is a skill which can be acquired. Other times it is pure luck or circumstance which is the catalyst.

  And that night it was a dream, because Danny had fallen asleep thinking about poor Claire Lilton . . . and the coincidence was that fifteen years before she had visited Joe Lilton’s home on the outskirts of Blackburn to do a firearms enquiry and had stumbled into a domestic dispute, but at the time had not really heard the words which were being said as she walked to the door of the house.

  In her dream, Danny was back there. It was a perfect reconstruction. All her recall was superb, even down to the words which passed between Joe and his then wife.

  Danny woke abruptly and for once did not lose the dream. It was there with her, vivid and exact.

  ‘Jesus, Jesus.’ She threw the duvet off and got into her dressing-gown. She dashed downstairs, cursing herself for not keeping a pen and paper next to the bedside. She found both in the kitchen odds and sods cupboard and scribbled down the words.

  Suddenly they all made sense.

  The memory must have hurt the girl. Since speaking those last words she had lapsed into a vague silence, blankly staring through the window.

  ‘What do you know, Tracey?’ Myrna asked softly, unable to stand it any longer.

  Tracey jumped like a charge had been passed through her. She raised a thin finger and pointed to Myrna’s desk. ‘The newspaper ... can you get the newspaper?’

  Myrna placed her coffee down, crossed the office and peeled the wet paper from her desk blotter and carefully carried it back, handing it over to Tracey. She took it and laid it on the sofa. She did not open the paper, as Myrna expected her to, simply pointed to the headlines.

  ‘What? You know something about that?’

  Tracey nodded.

  Myrna twisted her head and skimmed through the story underneath the headlines. It was all about the discovery of a girl’s body in some woodland in the North of England. It was a fairly run-of-the-mill story in national newspaper terms and had only made headlines because other good news was scarce, and the way in which the body had been discovered was obviously of great interest to many people. Lovers frolicking in a woodland glade don’t often find bodies - but when they do they can rest assured the whole world will want to know and so will their legal partners.

  ‘What do you know?’ Myrna asked.

  ‘I know the girl who was murdered. . . Annie Reece. She was my friend.’ Her voice faltered. ‘And I know who killed her.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Myrna

  ‘His name is Charlie Gilbert. You know him too ... he was one of the men who were defiling that girl the other night.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘A sodding dream?’ Henry exclaimed with mixture of contempt and amusement. ‘You want to go and investigate something because you had a dream? I need you here, not gallivanting across the county on some cockamamie goose chase.’

  Danny rubbed her face and held her thumb and forefinger at the bridge of her nose in an effort to alleviate the monstrous headache she had as a result of the lack of sleep. ‘I know it sounds whacky, Henry, but I think it’s worth following up.’

  ‘Tell me what the dream was and I might let you go.’

  ‘It was ... oh God,’ she began hesitantly. The images which had been so alive had now faded away to nothingness. It was a good job she had written some of the words down. ‘Words. I just remembered some words I’d heard years ago and I think there might be some connection with Claire.’

  ‘And how many years ago did you hear those words?’ There was a hint of mockery in his voice.

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘And Claire was only eleven, right?’

  ‘I know it sounds completely stupid and my mind is like a little ball
of cotton wool at the moment, which doesn’t help matters.’ She was pacing Henry’s office. ‘But humour me. Give a sucker an even break.’

  She stood across the desk from Henry. Pale, tired, drawn. She had not even bothered to put on make-up, which was very unusual. She looked ill.

  ‘Okay,’ he relented. ‘Although I don’t know how I’ll justify it if anyone asks me – “my DS is following up a lead from a dream”. Sounds like something from The X-files.’

  ‘Thanks, Henry. I’m grateful.’

  ‘You’ve got until five today, then it’s back to reality, Danny - and take a mobile with you, just in case we need you back here.’

  She shot out of the office before he finished speaking.

  Tracey was sleeping now, curled up on the sofa with Myrna’s overcoat laid over her thin body. She twitched constantly and moaned, sometimes fearfully, as though demons were chasing her.

  Myrna leaned back in her big office chair, feet on the edge of the desk, her half-closed eyes on Tracey, working through the horror story Tracey had spent a couple of hours relating in minute detail.

  The sound of police sirens on the streets below permeated through the triple-glazed windows.

  The big question for Myrna was - what was the next step to take? Or even, did she believe what Tracey was saying? Or was it simply revenge?

  Myrna believed it was true. It was other people, she guessed, who would have to be convinced. She flicked open her electronic organiser and tabbed through the directory to find the phone number she required.

  Within thirty minutes of leaving Henry’s office, Danny, in a plain CID car, was leaving the motorway and heading east towards Blackburn. She bore left towards Clitheroe and passed British Aerospace at Salmesbury, the classic English Electric Lightning guarding the gates like a huge Airfix kit. Even compared to jet-fighters today, the Lightning still looked the biz.