by Dylan Young
Blair stopped the tears from coming. She didn’t believe the dog man anymore. And mum and Kirsty would know by now that he’d taken her. Maybe they were out on the street calling her name. She thought about calling back but her throat was sore from already doing that lots.
Was it Monday? They always had macaroni cheese on Monday. Blair loved the crusty bits of burnt cheese.
She wiped away a silent tear.
She was tired. So tired.
She lay on the duvet, listening and hearing nothing.
Eventually, Blair fell asleep thinking about Bernard.
Twenty-Four
Anna took the fleet car and headed south.
Danaher’s call and the image of Blair Smeaton she’d sent was a lit firework in her head. Woakes had been dismissive and his mere presence was proving to be an unwelcome distraction, but Khosa had seen it right away.
‘Does this mean Hawley’s right?’
Anna had pulled back from accepting that wholeheartedly but Hawley, despite his proven innocence, seemed to be at the centre of everything. Yet Woakes’ scepticism stung like a splinter under her nail. She needed to get a better handle on Hawley, satisfy herself he was not a twisted perpetrator leading them up some bramble-strewn garden path. To do that she needed to go back to the victim. Or at least the victim’s family.
She found the address in Clevedon, drove to it and sat outside to gather her thoughts. Ever since she’d seen the photograph of Blair Smeaton a knot of dread began tightening inside her. Like some awful virus replicating and growing that she knew she could not shake off. Though she was here to deal with questions surrounding Rosie Dawson’s murder, Anna couldn’t help but fear for Blair and worry that what had happened nine years before was happening again.
She got out of the car and walked to the front door.
Janice Dawson’s house was a tired looking 1970s semi on Kenn Road. There were steps leading up off the pavement guarded by a painted iron gate. Beyond,. Beyond, a concrete path flanked by a gravel garden and some forlorn-looking pot plants in dire need of watering led to the front door. A black bell sat on the frame next to the white-wood effect uPVC front door. She pressed the bell. A minute later, after a couple of muffled and unintelligible shouts, the door opened four inches to reveal a pretty, short girl of perhaps sixteen in a T-shirt and skinny jeans with flip-flops on her feet.
‘Hello?’ she said.
Anna showed her warrant card. ‘Hello. I’m Detective Inspector Gwynne. Is Mrs Dawson in?’
The girl turned and yelled, ‘Mum, it’s for you,’ before turning away from the open door and stomping, with attitude, up the stairs halfway along the hallway. Anna stood alone on the threshold, taking in the interior. Everything looked clean but well used. The laminate flooring was worn, the scuffed and chipped paintwork on the balustrade spoke of a lack of either funds or the will to redecorate. Perhaps both. The patterned rug on the hall floor had a rip in the seam with strings reaching across towards the skirting board, like the black veins of a fungal disease.
A woman appeared and walked towards her. Anna recognised her from Rosie’s file. Janice Dawson had not aged gracefully. She wore too-tight jeans and her T-shirt clung unflatteringly, emphasising a midriff bulge. She’d used too much product on her hair and it looked frizzy and dry, and the skin around her mouth and eyes was coarse, perhaps from too many cigarettes or too much alcohol. Her gravelly voice backed up Anna’s deductions, sounding, when she spoke, constantly on the edge of a cough.
‘Can I help you?’
Anna reiterated her introduction. Janice looked contrite.
‘Sorry to keep you on the doorstep.’ She turned towards the stairs and said, loudly, ‘Some people have no manners.’ She turned back, her eyes apologetic. ‘She’s sixteen and wants to be twenty-three without passing Go. Come in.’
Anna followed into a brightly lit kitchen, passing a half-open door leading into a room with the TV still on and cigarette smoke hanging like smog beneath the ceiling. The kitchen was smoke-free, however. Janice, Anna surmised, kept her tobacco habit confined to the one room at least.
‘Mrs Dawson, the family liaison officer will have rung you to explain that we are having another look at Rosie’s case.’
Janice nodded. A tight, jerky little movement. ‘She did ring. She told me not to expect too much.’
Anna nodded. ‘She’s right. And I realise how it might be painful to talk about this again.’
Janice had a small tremor and she pressed her hand against the table to control it. ‘No. It’s not. I talk to her every day. Rosie, I mean. I don’t mind taking about her.’ She tried smiling but her mouth puckered and tears brimmed on the rims of her lids. ‘It’s not knowing who did it and why that’s painful now.’ She wiped the moisture from her eyes with a ruffled tissue, took in a deep breath and let it out again before turning towards the sink. ‘Tea?’
They sat at the kitchen table. Anna wondered how long it would be before Janice excused herself to go back into the den for a smoke. Strong tea was the best substitute for now. Anna let hers cool, but Janice sipped at the steaming liquid constantly. Above the fridge was a framed photograph of Rosie. The same one Anna had seen in her file. She may have been missing some baby teeth, but she had a wicked smile.
‘Bernice,’ asked Anna, flicking her gaze back, ‘is she still at school?’
‘Yeah. She got some GCSEs but I have no clue what she’s going to do with them. And before you ask, her dad ain’t here anymore. We broke up three years ago. That hasn’t helped. He’s moved in with a woman over in Knowle. As you can imagine, Bernice was over the moon when that happened.’
Anna nodded, noting too how Janice seemed less bothered than her daughter about the absence of Janice’s father. She’d seen it all before. Family break-ups were common, but in cases involving the loss of a child they seemed almost to be inevitable. She’d read that upwards of 80% of parents simply fell apart from the strain of either trying to pretend life would ever be normal again or wallowing in the guilt and trauma.
‘He blamed my mum for it all,’ Janice said. ‘Said he couldn’t stand to look at her. My poor mum. She never forgave herself, but I mean what can you do if someone comes up behind you and knocks you out? Terry, my husband, said she should have done something.’ Janice shook her head. ‘Truth is, I feel better without him here.’
‘What about your mother?’
Janice shook her head. ‘Fags got her two years ago, though they called it pneumonia.’ She glanced down at her own nicotine-stained fingers. ‘And before you ask, I have tried to give up a dozen times. I’m a lost cause.’ She attempted a laugh and it spiralled into a hacking cough.
You’re committing slow suicide yourself, aren’t you, Janice?
‘I wanted to talk to you about Rosie’s visit to the hospital in Cheltenham.’
Janice’s lids spread open in surprise. ‘Still on about Dr Hawley? Your lot had a thing about him last time. Don’t tell me he’s turned out to be a paedo after all?’
‘No. But I’m intrigued about your visit. Rosie was no stranger to hospitals, was she?’
‘God, no. We spent the first three years at the children’s hospital. Rosie needed surgery aged three for an ASD. That’s a hole in the heart, but I expect you know that. Common in Down’s, they are. Then there was her hernia and the thyroid problem. She had a file as thick as a bible. But that was here in Bristol.’
‘Not where you saw Dr Hawley.’
‘No. We saw him in Cheltenham. We’d been out to Sudeley Castle for the day. All of us. Terry’s from up that way. He loved Sudeley. There’s a maze and a big adventure area, so we’d made a day of it. A windy day of it, as I remember.’
‘Is that important?’
‘It’s what Dr Hawley said might have caused her injury. Rosie didn’t complain much. She was always so up for everything. But she started rubbing her eye that afternoon and in the car on the way home she said it hurt. She wasn’t a crier. We took her to A and E. I sat
with her while Bernice and her dad went to get something for us to eat. We promised Rosie a picnic if she was good with the doctor.’
‘What was your impression of Hawley?’
‘He was young but ever so good with Rosie. Gentle and explained everything. She let him put drops in her eyes, poor little thing. Then she sat on my knee and he put her on this machine to look in her eyes and told her what he was going to do. He took this bit of grit out from under her lid. Marvellous it was and she loved it. Always liked attention did Rosie. While he wrote up his notes she whispered in my ear that she wanted to give him a hug. I didn’t think twice about it. I asked if it was alright but before he answered Rosie had run across. He was a bit shocked, to be honest. But he was a sport about it. She gave him one of her big hugs and a kiss on his cheek. Like she did with everyone she loved.’
‘He didn’t reciprocate?’
Janice frowned. ‘He looked terrified. Me and the nurse were laughing and then Rosie started to laugh and I didn’t think any more of it. Until the police came and asked me about it. Like you are now.’
Anna nodded.
‘You don’t think it was him, do you?’
Anna deflected the question. ‘Was there anyone else in the various hospitals you saw on a regular basis?’
‘Lots of people. Different departments. Specialist nurses or consultants mainly. I gave the whole list to the officers.’
Anna had seen it. The investigating team had been thorough and eliminated each one.
‘It wasn’t right, what they put Dr Hawley through. The newspapers, I mean. He was only doing his job.’
Anna finished her tea while Janice’s tremor got slowly worse. ‘Do you think you’ll ever find who did this?’ she asked, finally.
‘We’re going to try, Janice.’
‘Exactly what they said last time. I want to know. I need to know.’
Anna thought about protesting. She read acceptance in Janice’s face and knew, too, that it would be completely wrong to inject a drop of hope into the situation when there was nothing at all to base it on. But those left behind needed closure. Yet Janice looked ill-equipped for ‘knowing’. In terms of child abductions where killing was involved, the statistics were harsh, stark and horrific.
Janice said, abruptly, ‘He boiled her bones, you know that?’
Anna nodded.
‘Cut her up and boiled her bones. I don’t…’ Janice’s voice caught on a sob. ‘When I think about what else he did…’ Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes squeezing shut.
For a moment, Anna tried to understand what being told something like that would be like. To have that tiny flame of hope extinguished. To what dark and desperate places your imagination might fly. It wasn’t a thing Anna could easily relate to. No one who had not experienced it could. Hearing of her own father’s death had been harrowing enough, but no one had then cut him up into little pieces and taken the flesh from his bones. Who could desecrate the flesh of another like that, and, more to the point, why?
‘I just wanted to say goodbye to her. That’s all,’ Janice whispered.
There were no tears left. Janice was at the last stage of her grief. Knowing that Rosie was never coming home but needing that understanding of why, regardless of what horror it might bring. But Anna sensed there was something else even before Janice voiced her thoughts.
‘Find him.’
‘Mrs Dawson—’
‘Janice, please.’
‘Janice—’
‘That’s all I ask.’
* * *
Anna took her leave, troubled by the still raw emotions she’d encountered, but relived that Janice Dawson had no doubts over Hawley. She was now convinced more than ever that she needed to do what her instincts told her to, and that Hawley’s role in all this was not that of an exposed, manipulative monster, but of a victim who needed closure almost as much as Janice Dawson did.
Twenty-Five
In the car, she dialled Holder’s number.
‘Justin. I want you and Ryia to go and see Terry Dawson today. It’s something we need to do. Lives in Knowle, I think. Trisha will have the address.’
‘Anything you want us to ask him especially?’
‘No. It sounds like he, of all the family, is the one who’s moved on. I also know the original team did a thorough job and he was completely clean. Ask him what he thinks happened that day, his impressions, and then double check with ICAT and the paedophile unit to make sure he hasn’t appeared on their radar subsequently. You know the score.’
‘Ma’am.’
Another box to tick. But they were all negatives. All leading her nowhere and leaving her flat and empty. It occurred to Anna, as she drove back to Bristol, that disengaging from the team after meeting with Woakes might have appeared, on the surface, a weakness. Might have implied some sort of emotional upset.
God, they told me you were a frosty…
They’d be wrong on two counts. She wasn’t unemotional, it was simply easier not to let the damned things in. They took far too much time to analyse. If it meant Woakes perceiving her as frosty, that was his problem, not hers. Perhaps it wasn’t one of her strengths, but she had not allowed it to become one of her weaknesses either. She’d long ago given up explaining herself, and the world, according to Anna, fell into those who accepted her and those who didn’t. Best to ignore the latter.
No, Woakes had not upset her. Indeed, Anna’s disengagement had less to do with the sergeant’s maverick approach and odd personality and everything to do with her own methodology. Sometimes she simply needed silence. A little cognitive trick that worked for her but needed far less distraction than the office provided. A chance to let the grey cells put everything in order, apply logic to the abstract. She’d been close to catching Charles Willis before he caught her. But it had been her first case as an inspector and she’d been forced to play it by the book instead of following her own lead. Had she done the latter, she might still have her own spleen and Willis might not have killed two more people.
And as with her runs through Badock’s Wood, driving with the radio off allowed ideas to run in the background of her consciousness at a level she was barely aware of. Allowed the pros and cons to lobby and dissect. At some point she’d come to a decision and act on it, right or wrong. Not that she dismissed discussion as a deductive tool, indeed for most of her colleagues it was the blunt instrument of choice, but Anna preferred, at some point in every case, the sharpened spear of being alone.
She allowed herself a small, ironic smile. The silences, the long runs, they were all part of her analytical, introverted character. Yet, as someone who by and large avoided social interaction, she seemed to be running into killers wherever she turned.
She’d talked through the horror of the Woodsman’s attack with a counsellor provided by the force. Rainsford, savvy as always, insisted on it. But she’d got a lot more out of talking it through with her old boss Shipwright, who’d been around the block so many times he’d worn a groove in the pavement. He’d recovered well from the heart attack that had triggered his early retirement and was, she knew, more than happy to talk to her about almost anything. His opinions were always worth a listen and inevitably pragmatic. His advice as she lay in the hospital bed, recovering from the stab wounds the Woodsman had inflicted, was to get a dog. A big bugger with teeth.
It was still on her list. But thinking of Shipwright now stimulated a new train of thought.
She dialled his number.
‘Anna,’ Shipwright said when he picked up. ‘Good to hear from you.’
‘Busy?’
‘Rushed off my feet. Paddling pool emergency. Unless I patch the leak, there are likely to be tears and tantrums in the Shipwright household.’
Ted Shipwright had passed the sixty mark but was on his second marriage with a young family. He’d only decided to call it a day because of his health. Anna missed him a lot.
‘What are you up to?’ Shipwright asked.
‘
Oh, you know. Fighting the good fight.’
‘You sound a little down, Anna. Rainsford cracking the whip?’
‘No. I need a favour, Ted.’
‘What can I do?’
‘I have a new sergeant. Dave Woakes. Came with gold stars. But he’s turning out to be a liability. At East Mids before he came to us. I was wondering if you knew anyone up there?’
Shipwright didn’t hesitate. ‘Colin Sandwell. He’s a DCI in their Special Ops Unit. Can’t shut up about Leicester Rugby club, but otherwise he’s a good guy. Want me to give him a ring?’
‘Would you?’
‘No problem, Anna. Woakes, you said?’
‘Dave Woakes,’ she paused and then added, ‘I feel a bit uncomfortable going behind his back like this. Is it the right thing to do?’
‘How long has he been on the team?’
‘Couple of weeks.’
‘Has he upset Justin?’
‘Yes. And Ryia.’
‘Then you’re being a good boss. It’s what I would have done. You know them and trust them, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Anna said.
‘So why compromise the team’s ability to function?’
Shipwright was, as always, on the money.
‘Give me ten minutes, I’ll ring you back.’ Shipwright rang off.
Twenty-Six
Shipwright kept his promise and rang her as she reached the M5 exit that would take her back into town.
‘I spoke to Sandwell about Woakes.’
‘And?’
‘His reports describe him as enthusiastic, determined and insatiably ambitious.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. But Sandwell also spoke to his last DI. They did not ask for his reference. If they had it would have been stamped CPT.’
‘CPT?’
Anna waited. Shipwright had great timing.
‘As in “cannot polish a turd”. Woakes, apparently, has issues. Comes across as bright and very enthusiastic. But he’s been off on a couple of long breaks with stress. Gets morose and withdrawn and fails to cope. Anger issues, too.’
