[Inspector Peach 10] - Witch's Sabbath

by J M Gregson

  Lucy Blake said hastily, ‘Yes. If it belonged to Annie, she probably bought it after she’d left home. We just thought it was worth showing it to you.’

  ‘I don’t recognize it. She didn’t have these shoes when she was here.’ She turned it over again. ‘Was this – was this shoe worn by the girl that you …’

  ‘By the girl whose death we’re investigating? Yes, it was. But the shoes were quite new. We didn’t really expect you to recognize them.’

  ‘They’re – they’re quite nice, I suppose. They’re the kind of things Annie would have bought. She wore trainers quite a lot, you know. And they’re size five. That’s her size; she always had quite dainty feet.’

  ‘Yes.’ Lucy thought of that thing she had seen in that bleak, derelict building, when these shoes had been the only item that looked as if they had a connection with a living girl. She thought of the careful, scientific dismemberment of that thing, half-skeleton, half-mummy, which she had witnessed at the PM examination. She could almost smell again the appalling assortment of odours that she had tried so vigorously to rinse from her nostrils in the hours which followed.

  She said, ‘I must emphasize that we’re still not sure that this girl is your daughter, Mrs Clark.’ Yet she was conscious that all three of them in that warm and dingy room felt that she was mouthing a formal phrase rather than a real consolation.

  Mary Clark looked at her steadily, her tired grey eyes clear now after the tears. ‘Don’t you have to identify her? Doesn’t someone in the family need to …?’

  ‘Yes. Usually that’s a formality, though a distressing one for the people involved. When a corpse is only discovered after it’s been dead for several months, it’s rather more difficult.’

  The grey eyes widened with horror over the damp cheeks. ‘You mean that she wouldn’t be recognizable, don’t you? You mean that—’

  ‘Mrs Clark, it would be useful if you could provide us with a DNA sample. Do you know what that is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be now. We could—’

  ‘I’d rather it was now. I’d rather have it done with. I’d rather know if this is Annie.’

  ‘If you could come to the station with us, it could be done right away. Someone will run you back here afterwards.’

  They helped her into her best blue coat and went out to the car with her, watching her closely for any sign of distress. But she walked erect, looking neither right nor left, moving with a stiff, steady dignity towards the horror which would come with certainty.

  They told her again in the car that other people were being checked out, that there was no real certainty yet that this woman was her daughter. Yet in the subsequent silence, each person in that slowly moving vehicle was sure that the police had now established a victim in this case.

  A twenty-three-year-old girl who had once been Annie Clark.

  Six

  ‘I need to speak to you. Just routine. At least I trust it will be.’

  Dermot Boyd didn’t like that last bit. And the man on the phone had seemed to enjoy saying it. But perhaps he was becoming paranoid about this, as Ellie had seemed to think he was. You surely couldn’t be threatened by any detective called Peach.

  Dermot was wrong about that, as he was to be wrong about many things in the days that followed.

  DCI Peach bounced into his office like a rubber ball, exuding energy. He was followed in by a man who was as tall and lean and still as Peach was short and stocky and mobile. He was six feet three tall and very black indeed, his darkness emphasized by the white squares on the chequered policeman’s hat he carried and the trimmings on his constable’s uniform. He might, indeed, have been designed as a contrast to the chief inspector. His very smart navy uniform set off the neat grey suit of Percy Peach; his plentiful crop of short-cut black hair accentuated the shining white baldness of Peach above his black fringe and moustache. Only his eyes, a dark brown against the glittering black of Peach’s watchful orbs, were lighter than those of the older man.

  ‘This is Police Constable Northcott,’ said Peach with an affable smile.

  He didn’t tell Boyd that this was a man he had recruited to the police after coming across him as a suspect in a murder case a year or two earlier. Clyde Northcott had been keeping bad company then, dabbling with drugs and dicing with danger, but Percy had recognized potential in him. ‘You can’t go wrong as a black man in the modern police service,’ Peach had told him, when Northcott had expressed his doubts about joining the force. ‘If you could just change sex and become a lesbian, you’d probably become a chief constable, but you’d need to be a real career fiend to do that.’

  Peach had a good eye for potential, and Northcott was doing well. Percy had his eye on him as a recruit for his CID team in due course – hence his presence here beside his mentor – but it was early days yet. Percy nodded towards his protégé. ‘Constable Northcott’s here to learn. Not that there’s much for him to pick up here. This should be quite straightforward.’

  Dermot Boyd thought the man gave a slight emphasis to that ‘should’, which he didn’t care for, but he wasn’t sure. He said, ‘I made a statement and signed it as I was asked to. I can’t think I’ve anything else to offer you.’

  ‘You never know. We might be able to prise out the odd interesting fact that you didn’t even realize you possessed. These things happen, sometimes. Of course, the person who finds the body is often a suspect, but when it’s after all this time, that’s hardly likely, is it?’

  He chuckled on the thought, and Dermot said, ‘I should certainly hope not, Chief Inspector!’ He tried a little answering chuckle of his own, which did not quite come off.

  Clyde Northcott did not join in this strange hilarity, which would have sat uneasily on his smooth ebony features. Instead, he flicked open his notebook, looked hard at Dermot Boyd and said, ‘So you don’t expect to be a suspect, sir. You didn’t know the deceased, then?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t!’ Dermot’s answer came almost before the question was completed.

  ‘Strange that you should be so certain,’ mused Peach quietly. ‘I went up there on the day after you’d found the remains, and I’d have said the corpse’s own mother would have been pushed to recognize what was left.’

  ‘Of course she would. That’s what I meant, really. As a matter of fact, I scarcely glanced at what was in the corner of that room. I was more interested in protecting my wife from the sight, in getting her out of there as quickly as I could.’ Dermot was glad he’d thought of that aspect of the incident; he thought he’d managed to deliver his concern for Ellie with a fair measure of sincerity.

  ‘Who was it that saw the body first, sir?’ This was Clyde Northcott again, with Peach silently applauding his sense of timing.

  ‘I don’t know. Ellie, I think. Yes, I’m sure it was my wife who saw the thing first. She gave a little scream, if I remember right.’

  Peach allowed himself the dazzling smile that anyone in Brunton CID would have told Dermot Boyd was highly dangerous. ‘Oh, I hope you do, sir – remember things right, I mean. It’s so important that we get these things correct from the start, you see. In the interests of which, it seems that you can’t be certain that you didn’t know the victim, first because the remains you found in that isolated place were unrecognizable, and second because on your own admission you “scarcely glanced at what was in the corner of that room”.’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s—’

  ‘So we’ve gained something already by coming to see you in person, haven’t we? It’s possible that you might have known the victim, even though you stated categorically to our uniformed officers making the original enquiry that this was not so. And PC Northcott has been able to make a note to that effect.’

  Clyde Northcott came in right on cue with a broad smile of confirmation, displaying his large, regular and very white teeth to Dermot Boyd for the first time.

  Promising boy, this, thought Percy Peach approvingly: I knew h
e would be. And he carries an air of menace with him that will be useful when we’re dealing with harder men than this marshmallow.

  Boyd tried to muster his diminishing resources. ‘I really don’t see that it makes much difference, Chief Inspector. What we’re all agreed on is that the girl was unrecognizable. That—’

  ‘Girl, sir? I don’t remember saying anything about the sex of this body, let alone its age.’ The black eyebrows lurched disconcertingly, impossibly high beneath the shining bald pate.

  ‘Didn’t you? I’m sure I …’ Dermot floundered for a moment, then felt relief rushing into his voice. ‘Yes, I heard it on the radio. They said on Radio Lancashire that a girl had been found on Pendle—’

  ‘Female, they said, Mr Boyd. The remains of a human female. We’re always careful about these initial releases. There was no indication given about the age of this lady at the time of her death.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I just assumed it was a young woman. Most females who are murdered are young, aren’t they? It seems that way to me, anyway.’ As he heard how unconvincing he was, Dermot faltered to a halt. Then he thought of something. ‘She was wearing trainers, wasn’t she? It’s usually young girls who wear trainers, isn’t it? That must have been what gave me the idea that she was young.’

  ‘Indeed she was, sir. You seem to have taken careful note of that footwear, even though your only concern was to shield your wife from the sight and get her out of the place.’

  ‘Yes. The trainers must have registered with me without my recognizing it.’

  ‘I suppose they must, sir. Well, you’re right, of course: this was a young woman. We are now pretty sure of her identity, as a matter of fact. So you can tell us if you did know her, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I want to give you all the help I can. But it’s surely most unlikely that—’

  ‘Anne Marie Clark. Probably known as Annie. Lived locally, sir. In Brunton, during the months before she died. Name mean anything to you, sir?’

  This time Dermot made himself pause and weigh matters before he spoke. But he still made a mistake. He said slowly, ‘No, I can’t say that it does, Chief Inspector Peach. As I’ve thought all along, I didn’t know your victim.’

  The young man tried hard to wait patiently. He hunched himself within the short leather jacket and thrust his hands more deeply into its pockets. But he couldn’t keep still. He’d been in police stations before, and they made him nervous.

  The station sergeant had mastered the art of keeping a careful eye on people without appearing to be watching them at all. He assessed this one as jumpy. Like as not, he’d lose his nerve and bolt for the door if he was kept waiting too long – shoot off like a nervous trout and be lost for good. The sergeant made a note of the address and telephone number of the lost dog that had just been reported, showed the drunk who had been kept in the cells overnight where to sign the form to acknowledge that the contents of his pockets had been returned to him. Then, with the reception area quiet, he judged that this youth had been left alone for long enough. He nodded over his counter at the figure with carefully tousled hair and the healing scar on his young, unlined forehead.

  The young man came forward, understanding the ways of authority without the need for any command.

  The sergeant said, ‘If you can give me a better idea of what it is you want, I might be able to put you in touch with someone who could help you.’

  ‘It’s – it’s about this body that’s been found. The one on Pendle Hill.’ He took a big, painful breath. He’d come out with it; there was no turning back now. ‘I think I might know who it is.’

  ‘Should have said that to start with, you know. Murder’s a priority. Murder opens doors that might otherwise remain shut to lads like you.’ The sergeant was taking care to cover himself against the charge of delaying things. The wrath of Percy Peach had the status of legend in Brunton nick.

  ‘Murder?’ The young, revealing face stared owlishly across the counter.

  The station sergeant shuddered at the thought of what Percy Peach might do to such a weak reed. ‘You want the man in charge of the case. Always go to the top, when it’s murder.’ Strictly speaking, that would be Tommy Bloody Tucker, but no one thought of him as taking charge of any actual case. The sergeant dialled a number on the internal phone, announced that he had a Matthew Hogan at the front desk, who might have information to reveal, then looked a little disappointed. ‘You’re in luck, lad. DCI Peach is out. Means you might get the delicious Detective Sergeant Blake. It really is your day!’

  The young man understood none of this. It was the kind of thing which happened to you when you ventured into a place where everyone knew the workings of the system except you. People talked over your head, made you feel stupid. But a little of it became clear two minutes later when he was ushered into an interview room. Detective Sergeant Blake really was delicious, as that balding veteran on the front desk had told him.

  She said who she was and told him that the lanky, pale-faced young man who sat beside and slightly behind her was Detective Constable Pickering. The man was quite tall, but Matt Hogan had hardly noticed him in the shadow of this spectacular beauty with the splendid figure and the striking chestnut hair.

  Lucy Blake was not unconscious of the effect she had on impressionable young men. She gave this one a quick smile and said, ‘I believe you think you might have known the dead woman whose body was discovered at the weekend. What makes you think that?’

  Matt Hogan’s mind was racing. He shut his eyes for an instant, then blurted out, ‘Was her name Annie Clark?’

  Lucy Blake knew better than to show her excitement. ‘We think it may have been, yes. You knew her, obviously.’

  ‘She was my girlfriend.’ It was the first time in months that he had said it, and he realized that he was proud of it. ‘We were going out together. Then she disappeared, without telling me she was going.’

  ‘I see. How long had you been in this relationship?’

  He was cast down by the question, and he looked suddenly much younger – sixteen or seventeen rather than his actual twenty-three years. ‘Not very long, actually.’

  DC Pickering said, ‘How long? We need to know: you must see that.’

  He hadn’t. He should have done, he supposed. He said stupidly, ‘You say Annie was murdered?’

  ‘We haven’t any doubt of that, now. You didn’t kill her, did you, Matthew? Be far better to tell us now and get it over with, if that’s why you’ve come in here.’ Gordon Pickering said it as quietly and casually as if he had been talking about a parking fine, and gave his contemporary an encouraging smile across the small, square table.

  ‘No! I wouldn’t be here talking about it, if I had, would I?’

  Lucy Blake swept her most dazzling smile over the appalled, vulnerable face. ‘You might, if you had any sense. Coming forward with the truth and asking for mercy is often the best tactic, if killers only understood it. We usually get them in the end, you see.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Annie.’

  ‘I see. Well, we’d better have some details from you. How long had she been your girlfriend when she disappeared?’

  Matt reddened. He should have anticipated they’d ask him this. That didn’t make the answer any less embarrassing. ‘About a week.’

  Lucy tried hard not to smile. ‘That’s not very long, is it? Are you sure you’re entitled to say she was your girlfriend?’

  ‘Yes. I’d known her longer than that, used to see her with other people, but it was only—’

  ‘And how long would this period be? – the time when you saw her as part of a group, but she wasn’t your girlfriend.’ This was Gordon Pickering, pen poised over his notepad.

  ‘Three months.’ Very prompt, very precise.

  ‘And in the last week, your relationship changed. In your view, at any rate.’

  ‘In both our views. Annie agreed to go out with me. Agreed to become my girlfriend. I’d asked her before but it was only in the last
week that we became an item.’

  Lucy smiled at his earnest use of that word. It was the one she used to her mother to explain her relationship with Percy Peach. Committed, not engaged, she insisted firmly, to a woman who longed for wedding bells and grandchildren. ‘And did Annie Clark feel the same way that you did about this relationship?’

  ‘Yes. I told you: we were an item.’

  ‘Had you slept together?’

  For a few seconds, he stared hard at the table without answering. Lucy said, ‘It’s not idle curiosity, Matthew. We need to know these things, when we’re pursuing a murder enquiry.’

  ‘It’s Matt. Everyone calls me Matt.’

  ‘All right, Matt. So you and Annie were an item. Were you sleeping together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Not until we were going out together. Not until she became my girlfriend. Only in that last week.’

  So he wasn’t the father of the foetus that had died with the girl. If he was telling the truth, that is.

  ‘Where was Annie Clark living at this time?’

  He gave them an address in the town, not more than a mile from where they sat. He gave them his own address, four streets away from where he said the girl had lived. He gave them his age and hers: both twenty-three. He watched Gordon Pickering note all of these things down. Then the DC looked up at him, studying him hard as he said quietly, ‘How did she die, Matt?’

  ‘I don’t know. You can tell me that.’

  ‘Not for release at the moment. You’re still maintaining that you didn’t kill her, Mr Hogan?’

  ‘Yes! I’ve told you I didn’t.’ Matt felt his old fear of the police rising at the back of his throat with the use of his surname. They’d frame him for this, if they could. They needed to arrest someone, anyone, for the sake of their clear-up figures. This tall bloke he’d thought might be sympathetic was doing the hard-cop routine on him now. He said desperately, ‘I wouldn’t have come in here to tell you about her, would I, if I’d killed her?’