‘Where?’
‘Can you reverse it, frame by frame?’
Alec rewound instead and walked it through to give him a steadier image. ‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed. He shook his head. ‘I’ve been looking at these things too long. She’s only just in shot, but I still don’t see how I missed her.’
‘You were looking for the children,’ Naomi guessed.
‘I think she’s with someone,’ Harry commented. ‘Look.’
‘Is he with her? I’m not sure. Damn, she’s dropped out of view.’
He let the tape run. ‘Now watch,’ he told Harry, ‘next to the Hook The Duck booth and there—’ he froze it for an instant—‘Naomi and kids in the same shot.’
He glanced sideways at Harry who was leaning forward staring at the screen.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Alec commented.
‘What?’ Naomi demanded. ‘Tell me.’
‘The oldest one looks like Helen,’ Alec told her.
Thirty-Four
Lydia Jackson, now Lydia Reynolds was a woman in her late fifties but she wore it well. She had steel grey hair, cropped into a style that was fashionably spiky and did not look out of place with the grey blue eyes and fine bone structure that the years had left to her.
She looked nothing like Penny Jackson and, though he had not thought of it before, Alec realized just how much like the father was the child.
It’s good of you to see me,’ Alec told her. ‘I’m sure this is the last thing you wanted.’
She smiled, a slight smile that nonetheless crinkled the corners of her eyes, showing the lines. Alec liked her lines. They showed humour, he thought.
‘It isn’t what I want,’ she said, ‘but I’ve been expecting it, ever since the news broke. Come on inside.’
The Reynolds lived in a bungalow on the edge of a modern housing estate. It was small, but neat and furnished with an almost Spartan simplicity. The floors were wood laminate, pale and clean and the walls unpapered, painted in light tones that set off the paintings hanging there. These mostly seemed to have come from the same hand and were vibrant and richly coloured. Semi-abstract landscapes that suggested the lie of the land rather than defining it were painted in such a way that at times the land dissolved slowly into sky and the sky swept down to penetrate the earth.
She caught him admiring them. ‘You like my work?’
‘Yours? I’m very impressed. Naomi would love these,’ he added, then he caught himself, but it was too late.
‘Naomi? Your girlfriend?’ She bit her lip and the blue eyes narrowed in thought. ‘That wouldn’t be little Naomi Blake, surely. Small world isn’t it?’
‘Small world,’ Alec agreed. ‘Do you sell your work?’
‘Oh yes, I’ve got a growing market. Pity it took me a lifetime to find my niche.’
‘At least you found it; some people never do.’
‘True,’ she nodded. ‘Would you like some coffee, Inspector?’
‘Please, and call me Alec. It seems silly to be so formal.’
Again that thoughtful narrowing of the eyes as she regarded him as though he were a painting whose composition didn’t feel quite right.
‘Alec,’ she said at last. ‘Alec Friedman. No, I don’t recall you being part of the Joe Jackson menagerie.’
Menagerie. Naomi would just love that. Alec smiled. ‘I worked with him on occasions. Not often though.’ He glanced back at the paintings hanging on the living-room wall. Naomi would still like them, he decided. He could tell her how the colours flowed and the storm blended into silence all along those cruel hills. The way the spring colours of that one glided into autumn. He laughed at himself, silently, but she caught him, smiled in collaboration and he found himself thinking once again just how little mother and daughter had in kind.
‘So,’ she said at last. ‘My daughter found that confession and handed it to the police.’ They had stayed in the kitchen, drinking fresh coffee. Alec’s attention wavering back to the paintings as she asked him if he needed sugar, if he had sufficient milk or would prefer the cream. She’d been procrastinating, Alec knew, but he didn’t blame her. She had evidently made a massive effort to remove herself from the past and his coming here brought it all back. Must be difficult.
‘You don’t see your daughter?’
‘No, I don’t see my daughter.’ She took a deep breath and began. ‘You were asking about the time when Helen Jones disappeared. I’m not too sure I can tell you anything. About a month before that, I left Joe for the first time and I took Penny with me. It was a bad decision, Alec, but after all those years with Joe, I feel I’m entitled to one or two.
‘I left him for another man and lived with this other man for a month or two, then he cleared off and left us and eventually I went back home. His name was Robert Williams and I’d been seeing him off and on for about a year before I took the plunge.’
‘Williams,’ Alec said. He put the thought away for the moment. It was a common enough name.
‘Um, yes.’ She smiled. ‘Not a name most welcome to you, I don’t suppose. I do read the papers, Alec.’
He laughed. ‘I’m trying to break the habit. How did Penny get along with him?’
‘Oh, well. Very well in fact. Joe, well Joe wasn’t around very much and even when he was, well, I’m sure I don’t need to give you a lecture on the effects of the police force on family life. But yes, she got on well with Robert. In fact, the funny thing was, it was Penny that introduced us in the first place.’
‘Oh. How was that?’
‘Robert had a child at Penny’s school. Robert was divorced, but they had some kind of shared arrangement on care. We got talking...you know...things went from there.’
‘And you say he just left?’
She nodded. ‘We had this grotty little flat, and for a while I really thought we could make it work out.’ She shrugged. ‘I was wrong, but there you go. One thing it did teach me though, I couldn’t stay with Joe any longer. We went back for a little while,’ she laughed. ‘I’m not even sure he’d noticed we had gone, or I’d gone anyway. Joe, if anything, was even more distant, but he was, well, kind of possessive too.’
‘Understandable, I suppose,’ Alec hazarded.
‘I said that to myself. But it wasn’t like that. I mean, he was never there, but when he did come home the first thing he wanted to know was where Penny was and if she wasn’t in the house and I didn’t know precisely where she was, he’d fly off the handle. Go berserk looking for her. I mean, she was at that age when she was starting to want her freedom, but Joe just couldn’t hack it. So we left again, for good this time.
‘We got a little flat, tried to settle down, but Penny was...I don’t know...difficult. She lost interest in school, friends, everything really. The school advised counselling. They thought it was the divorce, but when I spoke to Joe he would have none of it. Penny, she didn’t seem to care.
‘In the end, I took her to a few sessions in spite of Joe. He wasn’t living with her, coping with her moods, her wandering off and not coming home for hours. Not telling me where she’d gone.’
‘Did the counselling help?’
She shook her head. ‘No. She wouldn’t cooperate. Clammed up and said nothing. She said her dad didn’t want her to go and I couldn’t make her talk.’
Alec nodded. ‘And when she was older?’
‘Oh, she left home just after her eighteenth birthday. Lived in some kind of shared house and took a receptionist course at college.’ She sighed and the eyes narrowed again as she caught her thoughts. ‘You must think I’m a God-awful mother, but to be honest, by that time I didn’t care...no, that’s not true. I didn’t want to know. There was no talking to her. No way of getting through. I kept telling myself, I’m here if she wants me, but I can’t make her come back, and that’s where we left it.’
‘I don’t have kids,’ Alec said. ‘It must have been hard to let go.’
‘Not in the end. Isn’t that dreadful? I heard she met someone. Sett
led down, and I wished her well. Then I married again and here we are.’
Thirty-Five
Naomi had been unable to settle. Alec had left her early that morning and given her plenty of time to think until her session at the advice centre.
She had worked from ten till twelve thirty and been grateful of the distraction, but when the time came to leave and George Mallard had come to collect her, it was as if two and a half hours worth of thought suddenly clamoured for attention all at once and she knew she would have to do something about it.
Instead of going straight home she had George drop her at Mari’s, assuring him that she would be able to get a lift home.
‘I caught the bus on Saturday,’ she told him. ‘I’m dead proud of myself.’
George was impressed. ‘Just don’t get too independent,’ he joked, ‘or you’ll be doing me out of a nice regular job.’
Harry listened to what she had to say and agreed there was only one course of action to take. ‘We beard the lion in her den,’ he said dramatically. ‘Find out what she was doing there. Seriously, Naomi, I’m sure that woman was following you or something. On the tape, she’s just standing there watching for a good few minutes before she comes over to you. I mean, that isn’t normal, is it?’
‘It’s possible she just didn’t want to intrude,’ Mari suggested. ‘We all know how independent you like to be.’
‘Playing devil’s advocate never did suit you,’ Harry told her. ‘Let’s do it now,’ he added. ‘You know where she lives, don’t you?’
‘Joe Jackson’s old place on the Sileby Road.’ She shuddered slightly. It’s going to be strange going there.’
‘You make it sound as if you’ve never been,’ Harry commented as he led her out to the car and settled Napoleon in the rear seat. ‘I thought with you and Joe being so close...’
‘I haven’t. Not inside. Joe always met me somewhere else and even when I joined the force, he was never one to invite people home. He’d meet them in the pub or whatever. Lydia had gone by then, of course. Oh, she must have left during the investigation, though I’m not sure when.’ She frowned, trying to recollect. ‘I think it was the autumn after Helen disappeared that she left for good, but I gather things had been pretty rocky for a while. You know, Harry, I remember finding out where Joe lived and going there sometimes, just to look at the house. I’d stand outside and watch the lights come on and people closing the curtains or moving about inside the rooms and I’d fantasize about Joe coming out and finding me. Inviting me inside. I had this fantasy idea of what living with Joe Jackson must have been like.’
‘I think we all have those,’ Harry said quietly. ‘Fantasies about other people’s families. Sometimes it takes us a lot of growing up before we appreciate the value of our own.’ He cleared his throat nervously. ‘You know, I was the first of our lot to go to university. Mam was that proud and when I graduated she and Dad came to see. Naomi, I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t want them there. Here was I with my friends from uni and their mams and dads in posh suits and posher cars—well, that’s what I was looking at anyway—and there was Mam and Mac, come up on the bus; Dad in his best suit.’
‘He was like my dad: only ever had one.’
‘True. And Mam in this awful floral...thing. All clashing colours and roses and...God, it was gaudy. And me with a chip the size of a baking potato stuck on my shoulder. God, I was a stuck up little pig.’
Naomi laughed, she knew Mari’s taste in clothes. ‘But they were there,’ she said. ‘And you know better now. That’s all that matters.’
‘I wish I could take it back though,’ Harry said feelingly. He hesitated for a moment and then he said, ‘You know the funniest thing. I mean funny peculiar, not funny ha ha.’
‘What?’
‘When I saw them walking into the hall that day...I swear, even now, that there was Helen, hanging on to Mac’s hand.’
*
Penny was not pleased to see them; uncomfortable, it seemed, to have them on her territory, as they had been to have her on their own.
‘You’d best come in,’ she said and led them through to the cold front room where she had entertained Alec a few days before.
‘I could make some tea,’ Penny said, but it was not much of an invitation. She stood, hovering in the doorway as they sat down, as though hoping that if she didn’t follow suit they might quickly leave.
Naomi shivered. The room was chilly. It seemed to rise up from the floor and seep through the walls. The upholstery of the chair in which she sat felt clammy, damp to her touch.
Was it like this, she wondered, when Joe lived here and she had watched them from outside?
‘It’s been bothering me, Penny,’ she said, deciding to come straight to the point. ‘What were you doing there that day? Had you been following me?’
‘Following you? What day? The day you got lost? Of course I wasn’t, why on earth would you think that?’
‘Alec showed us some film,’ Harry told her. ‘He got it from the CCTV cameras in the fairground and you’re there, all the time Naomi is. Watching what she does.’
‘Of course I was watching her. I wondered if she was all right. She came in and then stopped and I thought, is she going somewhere? Can she find her way on her own? I certainly didn’t want to break her train of thought if she had her route set out.’
It sounded reasonable. Too reasonable.
‘Were you with someone?’ Naomi asked her. ‘A man. About your height with short dark hair, wearing a raincoat. Grey, probably.’
‘I wasn’t with anyone. Naomi, what is all this? What on earth is Alec playing at, feeding you these ideas?’
‘Alec isn’t feeding me anything. Penny, I don’t want to seem difficult or to upset you in any way, but, if you were following me, I feel I have a right to know.’
‘Have you asked yourself why on earth I would? Naomi, I have tried hard to be friendly. I have put myself out, exposed myself to all the degradation and the foul lies and the invective to make sure that the truth finally comes out. I didn’t have to do any of this. I didn’t have to let Helen’s family know what had happened. I could have let them go on believing that my father was an honest man and never let them have their daughter’s body back. I could have left them in the dark for ever more and never said a thing. But I didn’t. I told, and since I told, I hoped...I hoped that maybe, between us, we could share the grief.’ She broke off and took in a long quavering breath as though to stop the tears. ‘I’m sorry, but I want you to leave now. Please.’
They left in silence and didn’t speak until they reached the car.
‘I feel like a right shit,’ Naomi said. ‘She’s right, isn’t she? We’ve been so wrapped up in ourselves.’
‘Maybe. I don’t know, Naomi, I still don’t think it’s right. She’s hiding behind the words and if you’d let yourself be a detective again for just a moment, and stop letting her get to you with her emotional blackmail, I think you’d agree.’
*
Alec arrived back to find the place in uproar. ‘What’s going on?’
Travers was hurrying through to the back office. ‘Alec, good, don’t settle. You can come with me. They’ve found another body.’
‘What? Where?’
‘Lansdowne Road.’
‘I thought the digging had stopped there.’
Travers shook his head. ‘It had. Yesterday evening the editor of the Ingham News received a call.’
‘The Ingham News. The free paper with all the ads in?’ The Ingham News was a community publication for local businesses to advertise and local events to be given a bit of coverage.
‘Yeah, I know it seems like an odd choice. Graham Harris, the editor, describes the informant as a male, he thinks mid-thirties, forties. Local accent. Refused to give his name.’
‘Naturally.’
‘He told Harris that Helen Jones was not the only one and we should be looking under the patio of the house next door. Harris called us last night and
was put straight on to Phillips. He had no choice but to organize the dig. With all the bad press and this being the most exciting thing ever to happen to our Mr Harris, we knew he’d be out there talking about it. We thought, OK, another hoax call, but at least the caller said the patio and not the bloody living room.
‘So we dug under the patio. And there it was. Body number two.’
Body number two was almost certainly male though the pathologist would have to confirm that. And it was not a child.
‘Jewellery,’ Travers said, handing the evidence bags to Alec for inspection. ‘A man’s watch and one of those godawful sovereign rings.’
Alec turned them over in his hands, peering through the plastic at the heavy ring and the watch with its expanding bracelet, now tarnished and grey, showing only traces of the gold plating that had once been there.
‘Not expensive stuff,’ he commented. He glanced over to where the team in their white overalls were carefully excavating the grave, scraping back the earth in thin layers and recording as carefully as any archaeologist.
‘We knew who we were looking for when we dug next door,’ he commented. ‘Who the hell is he?’
Thirty-Six
Alec had not been pleased about Naomi’s visit to Penny and a few sharp words had been exchanged.
‘You’re being overprotective. It’s not as if I went alone.’
‘This time, no. But what other damn fool ideas are you going to get?’
‘I’m blind, Alec. Not stupid.’
‘I never said you were.’
‘No, just that I’m a damned fool.’
‘I said the idea was a damned foolish one.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Naomi, I just worry about you. I’d worry about you no matter what. That night, that night when I heard about the accident. I thought you might be...might not have made it.’
‘Dead, Alec. The word is dead,’ retorted Naomi, but she didn’t want to argue either. ‘There was a time I wished I was. Isn’t that just so...so...’
‘Yeah,’ he said softly. She felt his hand on her hip. A conciliatory, let me get closer gesture, and she lay her forehead against his shoulder.
Mourning the Little Dead Page 21
