‘That’s right. Nothing except excuses, at any rate.’
‘Did you make inquiries?’
‘My mother did.’
‘And what happened?’
‘At first she was told that the investigation was ongoing and that it might take a long time. In the end they told her that the matter had been dropped due to lack of evidence.’
‘So it was your word against his, and they believed him?’
‘I doubt that they even talked to him. He was too high and mighty. But, yes, basically. That’s what I took it to mean. A fourteen-year-old girl. Everyone knows the kinds of hysterical fantasies we have with the onset of puberty.’
‘How did you feel about it?’
‘How do you think I felt?’
‘I can’t imagine. Disappointed?’
‘Not disappointed. You’d have to have expected something to feel that, and I suppose, deep down, I didn’t. Expect anything, I mean. And the whole thing was frightening for a young girl, talking to the police and all that. I couldn’t imagine being in a courtroom in front of all those serious old people in their wigs and gowns answering questions about what happened to me. I was shy. I had an overactive imagination, even then. But the main feeling was as if I didn’t count. As if what had happened to me didn’t matter. I was a nobody. You have to remember, I was just a kid from a working-class background, and we never expected much from the ruling classes. I mean, I couldn’t have articulated it that way back then, but that’s what it amounted to. Money and privilege ruled. Still do, for that matter, no matter what the clever southerners try to tell you. I’m sorry, there’s me on one of my hobby horses again.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Banks. ‘Did anyone ever pursue the matter beyond that point?’
‘Not that I know of. There seemed no point. We’d had our shot, and we missed. What were we to do? Start a campaign? My parents . . . you have to understand, something like that, it wasn’t something they could talk about. They’d both had strict upbringings. Sex wasn’t something we talked about in our house. My father in particular. Which was why we never told him. If he ever thought anything was wrong, he probably just wrote it off as some sort of “female” problem. Time of the month. If he noticed at all. I suppose he would have found out if anything had come of it, but it didn’t. And he died two months ago. Maybe that’s another reason I feel I can talk now. Need to talk now. He can never know.’
‘What about your mother?’
‘My mother was ashamed. She tried not to show it, but I could tell. I’m not saying she blamed me, but when she looked at me, I could tell she wished I’d never brought such unpleasantness into our house. She wanted rid of it, so we swept it under the carpet.’ Linda seemed uncertain whether to go on, then she said, ‘I’m not even sure she believed me. I think she realised there was something wrong with me, but the visit to the police was more like a visit to the doctor’s with a troublesome pain or an unexplained lump. When the investigation went nowhere, it was rather like getting a clean bill of health. You know, it’s not cancer, after all, it’s not polio. More relief than anger. Mother died a few years ago, and by the end I think she had even convinced herself to forget it had ever happened. Neither of us mentioned it to anyone else, or even to each other again. We simply got on with our lives.’
‘No crime in that.’
‘Keep calm and carry on. I know.’
‘I mean . . .’
‘I know what you mean.’ She sat forward suddenly, linking her hands on her lap. ‘It’s what lots of people did, their generation especially. My father was part of the D-Day landings, but he never spoke about it. I once saw a big puckered scar on his side when we were on a beach somewhere, and I asked him about it. He just brushed it off as nothing, but I recognised it from pictures I’d seen in books. It was a bayonet wound. He’d got close enough to the enemy for hand-to-hand combat in the war, for crying out loud, but he never talked about it. He probably killed the man who wounded him, and that was why he was still alive. I just felt guilt, that’s all. I tried. We tried the best we could, the best my mother and I could. We got nowhere. Now I’m different. I don’t mind talking about it. I don’t even really care if everyone finds out. Maybe I secretly want them to. I want to know why nobody did anything. And I want them to do something now, if they can. Is that so strange?’
‘No,’ said Banks. ‘Not at all. That’s what we’re here for.’ In a way, Banks knew, she was probably right about her mother. In many cases, the parents didn’t believe their children’s stories, which made it far worse for the children, who felt alone, humiliated and ashamed enough to start with. No wonder so many ended up blaming themselves.
‘What do you need to know?’ Linda asked. ‘Ms MacDonald didn’t ask me very much on the phone.’
‘She just wanted to get a general outline of the complaint, the basics. I’m afraid I need a lot more.’ Banks glanced at Winsome, who had her notebook and mobile out on the table. ‘Do you mind if we record this?’
‘Not at all,’ said Linda. ‘As I said, I want to talk about it.’
Winsome set the mobile’s voice recorder on.
‘Where did the assault take place?’ said Banks.
‘In a suite at the Majestic Hotel in Blackpool, a big old place behind the Pleasure Beach. It’s where he – Danny Caxton – and his entourage were staying during the summer season. It’s not there any more.’
‘Why were you there?’
She cocked her head to one side. ‘Looking back, God only knows,’ she whispered. ‘Remember, I was only fourteen. Danny Caxton was famous. He was handsome like a film star. And he was a nice man. Or so he seemed to his public. He had one of those affable, trustworthy personalities. On the outside. Maybe that was another reason nobody believed me. It was after a matinee, and I was at the stage door on the pier autograph hunting. I used to do that back then. My friend Melanie was supposed to be with me but she cried off at the last minute and went to one of the amusement arcades instead. She wasn’t really interested in autographs.’
‘Did you tell your parents where you were going?’
‘I probably said I was going to try and get some autographs, yes. They knew I collected them. They were used to me going off by myself. I was a solitary child. A bit of a loner. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t antisocial, and I was really glad Melanie was with us that week. But I still needed to do some things by myself. I always have.’
‘So you were on your own?’
‘Well, there were a few others after autographs, but no one was actually with me, no. You might remember he’d recently started hosting that talent show, Do Your Own Thing! at the time, and I suppose I thought I had talent. I used to watch it regularly. I had dreams of being an actress or a singer then, the next Julie Christie or Dusty Springfield or something. People told me I had a nice voice, and I’d had some good parts in school plays. I wrote my own songs. I’d even played Juliet at school earlier that year. Most of the celebrities, they just hurried by and scribbled in the book without even looking at you, if they bothered at all. But Danny Caxton was different. He noticed people. He really seemed to see me. He stopped to talk to me. Me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He asked me my name, what I did.’
‘You told him you were at school?’
‘Yes.’
‘What else?’
‘What I was interested in. That’s when I told him about . . . you know, singing and wanting to be onstage. As I said, I was usually a shy teenager, but there was something in his manner that could sort of bring people out of themselves. It felt nice to be able to talk about my dreams to someone. Most of the others had gone by then. I was last in line. He had my book in his hand and his pen ready, but I was gushing about my favourite pop singers. He knew them all, of course – I mean really knew them – and that was when he said maybe he could help me, and somehow the autograph got lost in the excitement. He never did sign it.’
‘What did he mean that he could help you?’
‘He said maybe he could arrange for me to come to a filming of his programme in the TV studio, to be a part of the audience, that maybe if I was good enough I could even be on it. It was a friendly invitation, you know, a bit mysterious, a bit promising, the hint that there’ll be something good at the end of it, that I might even get to meet Helen Shapiro or Kathy Kirby. They were both in Blackpool at the time, in different shows. Can you imagine? He said I was pretty and I carried myself well, I had elegant posture, and that was always important if you wanted to be successful in show business. He said they were always needing extras and whatever for the TV show, or for a Christmas panto, and maybe he could get me a start.’
‘Then what?’ Banks asked.
‘I fell for it hook, line and sinker, didn’t I? He’d finished signing autographs, so he went back to his car. Just before I set off to see if I could track down Melanie in the amusement arcade, someone asked me if I’d care to talk to Mr Caxton now, that he had some free time.’
‘Who was this?’
‘I don’t know. A sort of aide or assistant or something. Famous people like Danny Caxton had other people to do things for them. He was there later, in the hotel.’
‘Did you recognise this assistant from anywhere?’
‘No. I’d never seen him before. He wasn’t someone from television or the live show. I would have recognised him then. We’d been to see the show a few days earlier with our parents, Melanie and me. An evening performance.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘I don’t really remember. Younger than Caxton. He seemed nice enough at first. There was nothing that really stood out about him.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, I didn’t think twice about it. I went over with him and hopped in the car. It was really plush. A Rolls-Royce or something. Inside it smelled all of soft leather, and when it moved it was like floating on air.’
‘That’s very brazen,’ said Winsome. ‘Whisking you off in his car in public like that. Did anyone else witness this?’
‘I don’t know. Most of the other autograph hunters had drifted away by then, or gone chasing after Jess Conrad. I know I felt special, like a princess, getting in the car.’
‘You weren’t suspicious?’
‘Why would I be? Believe me, I’ve flagellated myself time after time for not being, but how could I be, really? I was fourteen, my head full of dreams of the stage, and here was this nice, funny man from TV who everybody loved saying he could help me. He was in your living room almost every night. It was broad daylight, Blackpool in high season, there were people all around. Would you have been suspicious?’
‘Probably not,’ Winsome admitted.
Banks could see by Winsome’s expression that she wouldn’t have been, that she understood exactly where Linda Palmer was coming from. Perhaps the analogy with the pastor in Winsome’s neighbouring village, whom everyone had respected, helped make it clear to her. Like the pastor, Danny Caxton was in a position of trust and power.
Beethoven’s storm broke, starkly contrasting with the serenity of the garden and the cloudless blue of the sky.
‘I mean, back then we didn’t worry about perverts all the time,’ said Linda, ‘and I don’t think I’d ever heard of a paedophile. We were all warned not to take sweets from strangers, of course, or get into cars with strange men we didn’t know, but Danny Caxton wasn’t strange. He was . . . he was like someone we knew, really, a kindly uncle. He wasn’t the sort of person our parents meant.’
Annie was sweating by the time they reached the spot where Stefan’s officer waited. It was about half a mile south from the girl’s body, and despite the light breeze and some shade from the leafy trees, the heat was getting to her. She felt out of shape and realised that, despite the yoga and meditation, she hadn’t got back to working out again yet. She made a mental note to rejoin the small fitness centre in Harkside, where she lived, as she was far more likely to use that than go after work – or, God forbid, before – to the larger one in Eastvale, despite its advantage in having more fit males around. She glanced at Gerry, who didn’t seem to be showing any effects whatsoever from the walk. Well, she was in her twenties, Annie thought, a willowy redheaded thoroughbred, though she herself was only in her early forties, and willowy enough. Plenty of time to shape up. Only Banks seemed never to have to bother with all that. No matter what he ate and drank, he stayed as lean and agile as ever. Still, it would catch up with him eventually, Annie thought, with a grim sort of satisfaction.
Signs of activity was all Stefan had said when Annie had asked him what they’d found. When they finally reached the spot, she saw that another area of the roadside had been cordoned off with police tape, and there were three white-suited CSIs kneeling and swabbing the ground nearby, collecting samples in plastic or paper bags. There was also another faint skid mark on the road, as if a car or van had slowed down quickly, swerved, then speeded up again.
Even before Stefan pointed out the finer details, Annie could see that the long grass edging the ditch had been flattened and was crusted with dried mud. The dirt along the edge of the road surface was similarly disturbed, and a track continued, almost recognisable as muddy footprints, for several feet in the direction where the body lay.
‘So she was hurt before she got to the place where we found her, where she was killed?’ said Annie.
‘Be careful,’ Stefan said as Annie squatted and leaned towards the ditch. ‘We found barbed wire and a broken bottle in there. Both were submerged, so we don’t expect anything in the way of trace evidence, but they’ve gone for testing. Some of the cuts on the girl’s side might have been caused by the wire or broken glass.’ He gestured to the fencing above the drystone wall. ‘It was obviously discarded when this was added. No doubt one of the farmers had problems with kids getting in scaring his sheep or whatever.’
‘What are you saying, Stefan?’ Annie asked. ‘That she was in the ditch here?’ She was glad to see a sheen of sweat on the crime-scene manager’s handsome face. At least someone else was human, and that it was the ever-so dreamy, ever-so cool Stefan Nowak was even better.
‘If you observe the way the dirt and grass are disturbed here, I’d say it indicates that someone climbed out of this ditch on to the road and started walking north, back towards the Eastvale road. The water’s dried up, but you can see the outlines her muddy feet made. No shoes. And it seems as if she was limping. I’m saying there’s a strong likelihood it was our girl. If she was naked, she would have been covered in filthy ditchwater and mud, like the girl’s body back up the road. And she would also show evidence of barbed wire and broken glass cuts, as the body does. If you move closer, you can also see that a handful of grass been pulled out right there.’ He pointed. Annie could see it. ‘To my thinking, if someone crawled out of the ditch, they had to get in there in the first place. It’s an explanation. She went in here, and for some reason, she tried to get a hold on the grass, perhaps to prevent herself falling in or help haul herself out.’
‘So she was moving fast when she went in?’
‘Possibly. I’d say so. Rolling too fast to stop herself. And you saw the hip injury. Dr Burns says it’s probably broken. A fall could cause an injury like that, if she bumped it on the road surface, for example. You know what I’m getting at, don’t you, Annie?’
‘Someone chucked her in the ditch, most likely from a moving vehicle. You can see where it skidded on the verge close to where she came out. The grass is flattened in a direction that indicates the vehicle was travelling south. She climbed out again, after getting a mud bath and cutting herself up a bit, then started walking back the way she’d come – hence the muddy footprints – most likely hoping for a lift home. Which means she wasn’t actually beaten to death until later, further up. Unless she simply collapsed and died of her injuries.’
‘I’d say she was most likely killed by the roadside up there, where the body is, but she was already naked and injured when she got there.’
‘Well, the position and attitude of the body certainly bear that out. But the vehicle she was thrown from had already . . . I mean, what happened? Did he turn back for her?’
‘There’s no evidence of that so far,’ Stefan said. ‘You can see the sort of swerve those skid marks indicate. Someone stopped or slowed rather quickly and lost control of the steering for a second or two. It happens.’
‘Could they have got out and run after her? Or could someone have been with her?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Stefan, ‘but there’s no evidence of anyone else in the vicinity, and there’s only one set of footprints. We’ll check, of course. We’re doing a complete workup on what tyre tracks we’ve got. I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope because they’re just faint blurs, and you can’t get decent tyre impressions from skids, but there’s always a chance we might get enough to check against the manufacturers’ databases. For now, I’d say there were two cars.’
‘Two cars?’
‘Yes. Even from such small samples and skid marks we can see how the tracks differ. There was the van here, the one she was likely dumped from, travelling south. Then there was another van that stopped to give a naked girl a lift quarter of a mile up the road in the middle of the night. It was also travelling south, but it didn’t get as far here.’
‘Van? You said van.’
‘Judging by the track width, both were commercial vehicles of some kind.’
‘You say this second van was travelling in the same direction as the one that had dumped her?’
‘Yes. Again, if you look closely, you can see the way the grass is flattened a short distance south from where her trail ends.’
‘So the van would have been coming towards her, and she’d have had to turn to run back to it when it stopped. That would explain why her tracks continue on north past the spot where she’s lying back there. Bloody hell,’ said Annie. ‘What a mess. She ran back to the van when it stopped, and then the driver killed her. Or could the van have hit her? Could this have been a hit and run, despite what Dr Burns said?’
When the Music's Over: The 23rd DCI Banks Mystery Page 5
