Mourning the Little Dead

by Jane A. Adams

  Twenty-Nine

  After that it was all change. A cold case unit had been brought in to cover any final details in the Helen Jones case and focus switched back almost entirely to searching for the killer of Sarah Clarke.

  Alec was assigned to the new team as, he complained to Naomi, ‘a glorified collator’, a job which tied him to his desk most days and which they both knew was Phillips’ subtle punishment for Alec’s actions on the Radleigh Estate. He was somewhat mollified, though, by the story circulating around the station of Alec single-handedly storming the flats and rescuing the two trapped officers inside. The story had grown with the telling and he’d become something of a hero in the ranks.

  ‘Just like Joe,’ Naomi told Napoleon. Just like Joe.

  If it hadn’t been for the dog she would have holed herself up in the flat and not gone out until the storm had passed, but Napoleon had to be walked no matter what and, to her relief, no one camped on her doorstep asking for a statement, nor did anyone in her local shops seem to make a connection.

  ‘Why should they?’ Alec asked her. He didn’t like to tell her that a picture of the two of them had appeared in one of the nationals which ran a follow up piece—a mere sidebar really—comparing the Clarke murder with that of Helen Jones. It had made him think though, about where this relationship with Naomi Blake was going. It seemed that lately he slept in her bed, ate his meals with her, talked and argued and made love with her far more than he spent time alone, and it was growing in his mind that he’d rather like to put this arrangement on a permanent footing. But he had not yet put these thoughts into words that Naomi had been able to hear. The discussion had been one that had gone on strictly inside Alec’s head. And now did not seem like a good time to broach it. Not until they could once and for all get away from the Joe Jackson dilemma.

  And right now, Naomi couldn’t escape from it. It was talked about everywhere. Wherever she went, she encountered the same sense of outrage and pained disbelief that a police officer—one who had received a commendation for bravery at that—should have so savagely murdered a child. And then gone on to investigate her killing.

  That, of all things, seemed most cold, most callous, even to Naomi herself.

  Alec read out the headlines to her and some of the articles. Not that she wanted him to, but he seemed unable to stop himself and she seemed unable not to listen.

  ‘“Is this the face of a killer?”’ he read. ‘God knows where they got this picture. “Joe Jackson, in happier days, congratulates some new recruits”,’ he read and then frowned, something Penny’s solicitor had said coming back to him.

  ‘What?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Just something McKintry said.’

  ‘The solicitor?’

  ‘Hmm, yes. He mentioned photographs. Penny collecting photographs and one of them showed Joe with...a new officer.’

  His hesitation had given him away.

  ‘With me,’ she said.

  ‘Penny said you’d written something on the back, about him being a good friend?’

  Naomi frowned. ‘That was years ago, Alec. I’m not sure I can remember.’

  She closed her eyes and frowned harder, the way she always had when trying to pull a memory out of hiding. ‘I said something like, I hoped that he was proud of me,’ she said. ‘Something along those lines.’

  ‘Yes, that sounds about right. Naomi, do you have a copy by any chance?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Some of my albums are here, some are still at my parents,’ she smiled. ‘Bringing my photo albums didn’t seem like such a big priority when I moved here. Is it important?’

  ‘Probably not. It just rang a bell.’

  ‘I’m not in this picture? The one in the paper?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. They’ve done that checkerboard thing with the faces. Just Joe shaking hands with a bunch of faceless uniforms.’

  He frowned, folded the paper and dropped it to the floor and slipped an arm around Naomi’s shoulders. Music was playing in the background; some easy jazz that wove itself around the room, the sax sidling up beside them in that sexy way it has.

  ‘He talked about you a lot in his notes,’ Alec said thoughtfully. ‘Endless notes about you. What you did, what you said, the way you walked to school.’

  ‘He was working the case,’ Naomi shrugged.

  ‘I know, but trivial stuff. I bet I could tell you what your favourite colour was back then.’

  She laughed and leaned her head against his shoulder. ‘You know my favourite colour. It’s that deep kind of royal blue, like Mari’s curtains used to be.’

  ‘But not back then. Oh, he mentions blue, even mentions the curtains, but that year you were into lilac. Not purple, not even lavender, but a particular shade of lilac and your favourite clothes were a lilac shirt and a pair of embroidered jeans with butterflies on the legs.’

  She sat up, turned her gaze towards him, as ever unable to shake her sighted body language. ‘He recorded stuff like that? Why?’

  ‘Lord knows. Maybe he had his reasons. But he seemed obsessed. You know, Naomi, I’ll bet he knew more about you that he knew about his own kid. A whole lot more.’

  *

  Penny Jackson had retreated inside her own little world. She had let no one through her front door since the day of the press conference and she had not been outside. She had lived on the food she had stockpiled in the freezer. The milkman delivered what fresh food she needed, milk and eggs and even bread. She was grateful that he ran the gamut of photographers each morning and was considerate enough to open the storm door and slip things inside the porch for her so that she did not even have to venture outside for the merest second to collect her delivery.

  The papers arrived too; the boy enjoying the attention, she saw, as she watched him from the upstairs window. He stood talking to the crowd of news people and media types, his hands thrust down into his pockets, rocking forwards and back on his trainer-clad feet, the bright green bag slung across his shoulders, full of words about her father and speculation about her.

  ‘Is this the face of a killer?’ the headlines ran.

  ‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ Bill said. ‘Don’t read it. It’ll only make you cry again.’

  But she had to read it. Had to see what they had to say as they speculated about Joe Jackson’s home life and his family and the fact that Penny had been an only child and that her mother had left with another man and then come back, then left again. That time for good, and Penny with her.

  They wondered, in careful tones: if her father might have killed before...since...ever; if the confession was some kind of hoax; what the implications were for policing in Britain today; if our children could ever be safe when those placed in such a position of trust could be found so wanting.

  And when she had read them, she pinned the stories—each and every one—to the wall in her father’s study, like a gallery of shame. When the walls were full, she overlaid the first reports with others until the words became a jumble and the stories flowed out, one into the other and made no more sense.

  Only two spaces did she keep clear and free. The confession had been reprinted many times, but she chose the clearest image and gave that a place of honour above the empty grate where her father had loved to light the wood fire in winter. The second was one of the photographs she had collected from the solicitor that day. One photograph of her father she had sent to the local paper, anonymously, without being really clear as to her motives. She had acted upon impulse, regretted it almost instantly and been shocked to find it syndicated in several of the nationals. The other, the one of her father and Naomi Blake, she pinned beside the confession.

  Sometimes, against all reason, it felt good to have a way to keep the pain alive.

  Thirty

  By mid-October the sea breezes of September had changed tack and brought the first of the autumn gales. Perversely, Naomi loved this wild weather. Her walks still took her on to the promenade with a slightly less enthu
siastic Napoleon leading faithfully despite his obvious wonder at what had happened to his world. The wonderful playground of summer beach was now a cruel and biting place that sprayed him with cold water and tugged painfully at his fur and ears.

  Naomi knew that she would have to take pity on him and switch their daily walks to kinder, inland domains—such as the local park, like any sensible dog owner.

  Harry and Patrick were due back soon. They had almost come back to normality, moving from the privacy of the safe house back to Harry’s, and Mari had stayed with them. The plan was for Mari to make the final move when the schools closed for half term. Harry, who had lost too much time at work already, would probably have to commute each day.

  ‘Dad’s talking about selling up and moving to Ingham permanently,’ Patrick told her in one of his frequent calls. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you miss your friends?’

  He was silent about that, then moved on to talk of other things.

  ‘He’s still no happier at school, then?’ Naomi asked when Harry came on for his usual quick chat.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ Harry confided. ‘You know, I think there are some kids who are just not meant for school. I don’t honestly know what to do with him.’

  ‘He’s a good kid,’ Naomi said softly. ‘A bright kid, too. Just a bit different, I suppose. We’ll help him through it, Harry.’

  She heard his moment of hesitation on the other end of the line before he said gratefully, ‘It helps—really helps—you saying that. Naomi, I really don’t know...how I’d cope without a friend like you.’

  Coming from Harry that was a major declaration and Naomi was both touched and troubled by it. How much had Patrick said to his father? she wondered. Did they talk about her when they were alone? And what did they say?

  ‘Penny came round again today,’ she said.

  ‘You spoke to her?’

  ‘Yes. She still insists that Mari gave her my address. This is five visits in just over a week and she seems to have my routine down pat. I can’t even pretend not to be in when she rings the bell. I have to answer the door in case it’s something important.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Alec?’ Harry asked her.

  ‘Well yes, but what can he do? I can hardly have her arrested for calling round to see me, can I? And I feel sorry for her, Harry. She’s obviously lonely.’

  ‘So are a lot of people,’ Harry said with more feeling, she was certain, than he had intended. ‘I just hope she doesn’t start the same thing with us when we get back home. I really don’t think Mam could take it.’

  ‘How is Mari?’

  ‘Not too good. Stress, the doctor says. Like we needed him to tell us that, but her blood pressure’s up and he’s putting her on tablets for it. She just needs to get back to normal. We all do.’

  Naomi couldn’t have agreed more.

  Alec spent most evenings with her at the moment. The desk job at least allowed him to work regular hours, though Naomi knew he was champing at the bit and practically making excuses to get out and interview people, whether he could really justify the time or not. The simple fact was that, as far as the authorities were concerned, Helen’s killer had been found and the only reason that any kind of investigation was continuing was down to internal affairs. Such a high profile case as this one would automatically beg questions and those questions had to be answered. Primary among these was, did any of Joe Jackson’s team have reason to suspect all was not what it seemed with their boss. And with men like Travers, who had worked the case, now in positions of authority within the division, the internal investigation had to take place and the investigators had to prove that everyone was squeaky clean.

  So far, they had found nothing, though Alec still resented his part in all of it. He felt that he was being set apart, made to work against colleagues who had long since earned his respect and he didn’t like it one little bit.

  She had just finished talking to Harry when she heard his key in the door. The door key was a recent thing, partly born of the fact that twice now she had thought it might be Alec at the door only to discover Penny Jackson standing there.

  ‘Good day?’ she asked as he kissed her. She leaned against him, relishing the warmth of his body and the scents of cinnamon and cedar she had come to associate with him, as well as the faint citrus tang which told her he had used her shampoo that morning.

  ‘Strange day,’ he said, letting go of her far too soon and heading for the kitchen, bending to fuss the dog on the way.

  ‘I think you give that dog more attention than you do me.’

  ‘Come here and I’ll play with your ears.’

  ‘I might like that.’

  ‘Ooh, kinky!’

  ‘You sound happy. What do you mean, strange day?’

  She heard him fill the kettle and plug it in, then turn to lean against the counter in typical Alec fashion. She could picture him looking at her with his arms folded and his feet crossed at the ankle so that all the weight rested on his left foot.

  ‘We’ve been working through the case files as you know, and it struck me a couple of days ago that there was something familiar about that confession, but I couldn’t place it. You remember me mentioning it?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, Bob Saunders and I have been sifting through all the calls and letters; all the usual stuff, including the other confessions.’

  Naomi nodded. Any murder case or suspected murder attracted these bits of correspondence from members of the public either convinced in some way of their own guilt or playing some elaborate game. These were filed, checked where possible and given as much weight as any other information that came in. They were a sore point amongst any officers involved in such a case due to the man-hours wasted on false leads which often outpaced those which actually led somewhere.

  ‘Well I found two letters written several days apart and delivered at a week’s space from each other. This was a month or five weeks after Helen disappeared. I had this vague memory of seeing them when I first flicked through the evidence boxes, but I’d not seen the confession at the time and then we got distracted by other things. You know how it is, the memory was there but I couldn’t have told you what it was or how important.’

  Naomi laughed, they’d all been there, chasing down some fly thought in the back brain that often turned out to be nothing. But just occasionally...

  ‘And,’ she said.

  ‘And, I’ll bet what’s left of my pension they were written on the same machine. They’ve been sent to Documents for comparison, but I’m confident, Naomi.’

  ‘What did they say? Did they confess to killing Helen? Were they signed or anything? Maybe Joe, maybe he was trying to confess all along. Maybe...’

  ‘Hey, steady on,’ Alec told her. ‘We’ve been kicking around ideas for the last three hours or so. Neither Travers nor Phillips remembers them coming in but that’s hardly surprising. It’s twenty-three years and a hell of a lot of cases later. Phillips was a sergeant and Travers a young PC doing door-to-door. Chances are neither of them ever saw the letters.’

  ‘Letters, not confessions.’

  ‘Letters and confessions.’ He broke off and she heard him unhook the kettle and the chink of the teapot lid as he made tea. ‘But two things we were decided on and we believe the experts will agree: same machine with the same fault on the letter A, but different author.’

  ‘Joe had an accomplice?’

  ‘If he did then it was a kid. And a kid who couldn’t spell.’

  ‘A child! Oh my God, Penny.’

  ‘That’s jumping to very big conclusions.’

  ‘And you’re telling me you didn’t make the same leap? Come off it, Alec.’

  ‘It was mooted, along with a dozen or more theories,’ Alec confirmed. ‘Naomi, when that bracelet was left on your doorstep, we wondered if maybe there had been a witness to the murder. What if Penny saw her father kill Helen? Can you imagine what that would have done to her?’
<
br />   Naomi fell silent. She nodded, her mind reeling at the implications.

  ‘But why not come forward? Why not tell someone? Why wait till now?’

  ‘People do it all the time, you know that. If a truth is too big, they hide from it. If it’s too painful they wrap it up in more lies and hope that it’ll go away. And he was still her father and we know from what she’s said, and more to the point what she’s not said, just how important his approval was to her.’

  ‘So, maybe she tried to tell someone without telling them: she wrote the letters. She left the bracelet now, or had those kids leave it because she wanted to tell you, or me, or anyone, that she knew the truth; that she had seen it happen.’

  ‘Then why not come straight out and say it? What does she have to lose now?’

  ‘Think about it,’ Alec told her. ‘She’s had to confront a really nasty truth about her own father. A truth she’s maybe been hiding from for years. Maybe she has to do it a little at a time. God knows, I’d want to cut myself off completely from it all.’

  Naomi nodded. What Alec was saying made a kind of sense, but something kept nagging at Naomi’s brain, much as the letters must have done Alec’s. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘Alec, my feeling is there’s something else. This pop psychology’s all well and good, but does it fit Penny? The Penny we know?’

  ‘The Penny we’re doing our damndest not to know,’ he corrected her.

  Thirty-One

  ‘Gary Williams has gone hack to work,’ Travers told Alec the following day. ‘Phillips says you’re to keep away.’

  ‘My pleasure. Where’s he working?’

  ‘The warehouse. Seems the manager’s up for giving him a second chance seeing as how there’ve been no charges and he’s been victimised by “that poncy copper”.’

  ‘Oooh. Get him. I’m going up in the world, I am.’

  Travers grinned. ‘How do you figure that one?’

  ‘Stands to reason. ‘I’ve got my own bloody nickname. I’m not a filthy pig or a bloody wanker, I’m a poncy copper.’