A Shred of Evidence

by Jill McGown

  But the time factor was against that. The car would have had to arrive, Natalie and her boyfriend would have had to have been together for some minutes, at least, however poor a performer Lloyd thought he was; then the row, then the murder. Then he had to get away—all before Mrs. Cochrane came out of the woods.

  “Mrs. O. did say that she had found it quite difficult to bring up Natalia on her own,” Lloyd carried on. “She has to work, and Natalia’s been pretty well doing her own thing for the last three years. I got the impression that she wasn’t all that easy to control, as I said.”

  “Married brings us back to Colin Cochrane,” said Judy. “I know he’s just a wild guess, but they can be right. And Tom’s not stupid.”

  “No, he’s not. But don’t encourage him—he thinks he’s got this all sewn up, and we’re a long way from that.” He looked thoughtful. “I suppose Mrs. Cochrane really did see Natalia alive, did she?”

  Judy shrugged. “Well, I told the troops not to take it as gospel,” she said. “But I think she did.”

  Lloyd grunted “I think I’ll get back to the station—see what’s been coming in.”

  Judy headed up the hill to Oakland School. She was going to talk to Baby Otter.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Patrick had had more effusive welcomes in his time, not least from Erica. “I just came to see how you are,” he said.

  “I thought maybe Colin had sent you,” she said.

  “Colin? Why would he send me?”

  “To tell me you had to mend his car yesterday,” she said.

  Patrick nodded. “I did,” he said.

  Erica’s eyebrows rose. “You mean it really wouldn’t start?” she said.

  “It was something and nothing,” he said. “Only took about an hour—but I told Victoria it took a couple of hours, so don’t go landing me in it, will you?”

  Erica stepped back, inviting him in.

  The dog padded over to him immediately, and Patrick tickled its ears. “It was this fella who found her, they tell me?” he said. He sat down, and patted the large head that was laid in his lap. “It must have been a terrible shock for you,” he said.

  “Yes.” Erica sat down too.

  “It was just when you didn’t come in to work, I was worried. I’m not here to provide an alibi for your husband, if that’s what you thought I was doing.”

  She sighed. “I know you’re not,” she said.

  “What were you doing there, at all?” he asked. “At that time of night?”

  “I had the dog,” she said defensively.

  Patrick smiled at Sherlock. “What use would this great lump be if you’d met this nutter?” he asked.

  Erica put out a hand and touched Sherlock’s ear. “Well, I didn’t meet him,” she said.

  Not quite, thought Patrick. Not quite. But you very nearly did.

  “Kim, isn’t it?”

  Kim nodded, and stood just inside the door. She had already spoken to the police, because Mr. Murray had told them that she was a friend of Natalie’s, though what qualified him to judge she didn’t know. Still, he was right. But now she had been called out of class to come and talk to a detective inspector. It was a woman; that had surprised her.

  The woman smiled. “I’m DI Hill,” she said. “Have a seat, Kim.”

  They were in Mrs. Cochrane’s office, DI Hill behind the desk. She looked all right. She looked cool, in light, smart summer clothes instead of the heavy dark uniform that Kim wore. She was in her thirties, Kim supposed. She had a nice smile.

  She had managed the other interview all right. She had said that Natalie had been to discos and things with boys, but other than that she knew nothing. She hadn’t let on how well she had known Natalie, because that way she could get away with keeping her information to herself. She wished, with all her heart, that Natalie had never told her. and it was getting easier to pretend that she never had.

  “Please?” The inspector indicated the seat.

  Kim edged forward and sat, as requested, ready to be interviewed again, though she didn’t know why. But nothing had prepared her for the inspector’s opening question.

  “You’re Baby Otter, is that right?”

  Kim’s mouth opened. How could she know about that? It was a private joke, nothing more. She looked at DI Hill in sheer awe.

  “No magic powers, Kim. You shouldn’t write things on the back of seats if you want to keep them private.”

  Kim still didn’t see how she knew. Was it really only yesterday that she’d done that? And Natalie had crossed out the I. She still couldn’t really take it in; Natalie was dead. Dead. It seemed unreal, impossible. She would be back tomorrow. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t, because someone had killed her. And she knew something the police didn’t know, and Hannah had said not to tell them.

  Kim hadn’t wanted to come to school today, but her mum had said she would probably feel better here with everyone else than brooding about it at home, because she had to go in to work, and she didn’t want to leave Kim on her own. But nothing made you feel better about your best friend having been murdered.

  “This must have been a terrible shock for you,” the inspector said. “And I’m sorry that I have to come barging in asking questions. But I’m sure you understand how vital it is that we know as much as possible about Natalie.”

  Kim nodded.

  “She was Pink Champagne, I take it. Did the names mean anything?”

  Kim shook her head. “Just silly names we gave one another when we were kids,” she said.

  “So you’ve known Natalie a long time?”

  “Since the juniors.”

  The inspector nodded slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This must be very difficult for you. But I’m sure you want her killer found.”

  Kim nodded again. She did. She wanted whoever had done that caught and dealt with. She ought to tell her, she ought to. Just tell her what Natalie had said. But she had promised Hannah, and Hannah was off sick today, so she couldn’t be released from her promise.

  Kim wasn’t sure why she had promised. What the hell did it have to do with Hannah, anyway? But Hannah had always behaved as though Colin Cochrane was her own personal property, and she had promised.

  It was true that it would cause an awful lot of trouble for him, and it was hard to believe that he would have done anything like that. She had rung Hannah for advice; there wasn’t much point in ignoring the advice she’d been given.

  “Tell me about this drama group,” said DI Hill. “You’re a member, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was where you’d been when I saw you on the bus yesterday?”

  She had been on the bus, of course. She had to have been, otherwise how could she have known about her writing on the seat? “Yes,” she said again.

  “Natalie was a member?”

  “Yes.”

  If her monosyllabic replies were irritating the inspector, she gave no hint of it. She had a big notebook open in front of her, and she would jot things down now and again.

  “There was a boy on the bus,” Inspector Hill said. “Right at the front. Natalie seemed to know him. Is he a member of the drama group?”

  “Dave Britten. No.”

  “Was he Natalie’s boyfriend?”

  “Used to be,” said Kim.

  “Was she seeing someone else?”

  Kim shrugged.

  “I have to know,” said the inspector. “Even if it’s just to eliminate people from the enquiry. I have to check. And our enquiries here have led us to believe that Natalie had had one or two boyfriends over the last two years. Is that true?”

  “One or two,” said Kim. Several, actually.

  “But the feeling seems to be that she may have found a steady boyfriend during the holidays.”

  “I don’t know,” Kim muttered.

  The inspector put down her pen and sat back. “Kim,” she said, “I know this might be hard to believe, but I was fifteen once. And
I had a friend that I’d had since the juniors.” She smiled. “I have never known anyone as well as I knew her, and no one has ever known me as well as she did. Did Natalie have a steady boyfriend?”

  Kim could feel herself grow red, and the silence that followed the question grew unbearable.

  “I don’t know his name.”

  “What do you know?”

  Kim didn’t speak.

  “What do you know?” she asked again.

  She didn’t want to get him into trouble. She didn’t want to get anyone into trouble.

  “What do you know?” Just the same question, over and over. Not impatient, not demanding an answer. Just asking, over and over.

  “She told me he was married,” she said, not looking at the inspector, trying not to let the tears come, but they were coming despite her efforts.

  “Did she tell you anything else?”

  “No,” she said, her voice agonized, tears streaming down her hot face.

  The inspector produced tissues from somewhere, and handed them to her. “I think she did, Kim,” she said, her voice quite.

  Kim shook her head. Her whole world seemed to be closing in, to have become this question. Hannah was right; she would ruin his career, his marriage. But what if he had killed her? What if?

  “Kim,” said the inspector.

  That was all; just her name, a slight warning in her voice. Kim didn’t have to answer. The head had said that it was up to her whether she saw the police at all on school premises. But she ought to tell her. Whatever she had promised, whatever harm it would do. Natalie had been done terrible harm. Kim raised her head. “She said he was a teacher, ” she whispered.

  “Did she say which teacher?” The inspector’s voice hadn’t changed now that she had won; there was no triumph, no increased urgency, no shock, no disapproval. just the same quiet tone of voice.

  “No,” said Kim, wiping the tears that wouldn’t stop coming.

  “No, honestly, she didn’t, she didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry this is so distressing for you,” said the inspector. “But I need to know what you’re not telling me.”

  “That’s all Natalie told me!”

  The sun was shining outside, lighting the office with an almost golden glow; Kim wished with all her heart that she was out there, away from this claustrophobic room.

  “Whatever it is,” the inspector said as though Kim hadn’t spoken, “it can’t hurt Natalie now. Was she putting pressure on this man?”

  “What?” said Kim.

  “Threatening to tell his wife, or something?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kim.

  “Was she the kind of girl who might do that?”

  Kim shook her head.

  “Tell me what she was like,” said the inspector.

  Kim got herself under control. She could tell her about Natalie, she supposed. “She … she wouldn’t do anything like that,” she said. “She really wouldn’t.”

  The inspector nodded. “I know you’re very shocked by what’s happened,” she said. “But—please don’t think I’m criticizing or being cruel—are you actually surprised?”

  Kim stared at her. Of course she was—no. No, no, she wasn’t. Not entirely.

  “No,” she whispered, after she had been made to think about it. “I worried about her.”

  “Because she went with a lot of boys, or because of something more specific?”

  “Because …” Kim tried to put it into words, but it was difficult. “Because she never thought,” she said. “She never thought, not really. She never thought before she did anything.”

  “About the effect it would have on other people?”

  Kim looked away. “Or herself,” she said. “She never knew when to stop.”

  “Who was Natalie seeing, Kim?”

  “She didn’t tell me who it was!” Kim shouted.

  “But you think you know.” Still the same, quiet voice.

  “It’s just gossip, I don’t know.”

  “What gossip?”

  Kim shook her head.

  “If it’s gossip, I’m going to hear it anyway.”

  DI Hill looked nice. She looked like Kim’s mum, in a way; she didn’t look as though she would let you wriggle on the end of a stick until you told her what she wanted to know. But that was what she was doing, and she wasn’t going to stop.

  Kim looked down at her hands. “Someone … someone said that Mr. Cochrane was having an affair with one of the girls at school.” She looked up, now that the words were out. “That doesn’t mean he killed her!” she said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” said the inspector. “And it doesn’t mean that it was Natalie he was having an affair with. Come to that, it doesn’t mean he was having an affair at all. Gossip’s like that.” She was writing as she spoke. “I do take gossip with a pinch of salt, so don’t worry about that.”

  Kim blew her nose, and wiped away the tears.

  “Thank you,” said the inspector. “And I’m sorry. I really am.”

  No, she wasn’t. She’d got what she wanted.

  But there was something else that Kim thought she ought to know. Possibly the only thing she had intended telling her, and she still hadn’t said it. “She … she seemed worried about something,” she said.

  The inspector frowned a Little. “Did she?” she asked. “She seemed quite cheerful when I saw her on the bus.”

  Kim nodded. “Maybe I don’t mean worried,” she said. “But she was … funny. In a funny mood. As if she was thinking about something else all the time.”

  “Did you ask her if she had something on her mind?”

  Kim shook her head. “I didn’t see her on her own,” she said.

  “But there was something bothering her. Well, no, she didn’t seem bothered, just—” She broke off.

  “Preoccupied?” suggested the inspector.

  Kim nodded. Preoccupied. That was the word.

  She wanted to tell Patrick, but she mustn’t, not even him. They had talked about what the police were doing at the school, and Patrick said that someone had chatted to him about Colin, but that he thought he was just a fan.

  Erica doubted it. “What did he look like?” she asked.

  “Young. Well—he looked like one of the sixth-formers, but he’s got two kids, so I suppose he must be older than he looks,” said Patrick. “Curly fair hair.”

  Oh, God. Detective Sergeant Finch. He hadn’t seemed much like a fan of Colin’s last night. Erica wasn’t sure how much of this she could stand. She wanted to know what he had been “chatting” to Patrick about, but he didn’t attach any significance to it, and she mustn’t be the one to make it clear that there was any.

  She felt so alone, so helpless. She began, despite her best efforts not to, to cry again. Patrick was beside her, his arm round her shoulders.

  “I saw her,” she told him. “I saw her alive. About quarter of an hour before Sherry—”

  Patrick patted her like a baby as she cried. “There was nothing you could have done,” he said. “Nothing. Don’t cry, there’s a good girl. Don’t cry.”

  He kissed her as he spoke, little comforting kisses, and she didn’t try to stop him. They sprang apart as they heard the front door open, and by the time Colin came in Patrick was back on the other chair and the dog was looking inscrutable, his head on Patrick’s knee as though it had been there for hours.

  Colin frowned. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Poor Patrick. That was the second time someone had asked him that.

  “I came to see how Erica was,” he said easily.

  Colin sat down, tight-lipped. He looked at Erica, then at Patrick. “I have to speak to Erica,” he said pointedly. “Alone.”

  “No sooner said,” said Patrick amiably, getting up. He gave Erica and the dog a final pat each. “Take care of yourself, love,” he said. “See you later, Colin. I’ll show myself out.”

  Colin waited until the front door closed before he spoke. “I
thought I’d better find out if you had come home,” he said.

  “I hadn’t gone far,” said Erica tiredly. “I just couldn’t face school.”

  “Or me, it would seem,” said Colin.

  Erica sighed. “Or you.”

  “Mrs. Ouspenky’s boyfriend’s in the clear, Sage,” said DC Marshall as Tom Finch walked into the murder room. “He was in a Happy Eater between ten and eleven last night, halfway to Doncaster. He has six fellow diners, a tankful of DERV, and a timed and dated receipt to prove it.”

  “Good,” said Tom, though it didn’t sound as though Marshall had been obeying the instruction to be discreet. Never mind. “One less to worry about,” he said.

  “Tom—just the man,” said Bob Sandwell. “Those clothes you sent over to the lab?”

  Tom looked at Sandwell startled. “They can’t have checked them out already,” he said.

  “No, but they found something in the pocket that’ll interest you.” Sandwell pushed over a piece of paper encased in plastic. “It’s been laundered,” he said. “But it’s legible. It’s not been for fingerprints yet, but there doesn’t seem much hope.”

  Tom took it. A typewritten letter, faded, but as Sandwell had said, legible.

  It began “Dear Colin,” and was dated the sixth of September. It said that the writer would wait for him on the Green, at the adventure playground, that evening. It went into graphic—not to say pornographic—detail about what the writer and Colin had done together the last time they had met, and what they would do this time. If it had ever been signed, the signature had been laundered away.

  Tom smiled broadly. “Bob Sandwell, I could kiss you,” he said.

  “I shouldn’t have let you read that—it’s got you over-excited.” Sandwell took it back. “I’ll get copies made,” he said. “and send this off for prints.”

  “So, he didn’t go anywhere near the Green, didn’t he?” Tom said, jubilant. He and Sherlock should set up in business together. Together, their noses would conquer the world.

  “Maybe he didn’t,” warned Sandwell.

  Tom pulled a disbelieving face. “With all that on offer?” he said. “Has the DCI seen it?”

  “No, it’s just come in.”

  “Do us a copy. I can’t wait to see his face when he reads this,” said Tom.