by Jill McGown
She didn’t think Natalie had tried anything else, but if she had, she hadn’t told Kim. She doubted that she had, because Natalie had been the first to grow up, too, in every way. Except in the boob department, Kim thought, with a sad smile. She had outstripped Natalie there by the time she was thirteen.
She began to cry, then. She hadn’t cried, not until now. And she couldn’t, not here, with all these people. She blinked away the tears, pretended that the sun was in her eyes.
Natalie had had boyfriends first, of course, and had lost her virginity before her fourteenth birthday. She had sworn Kim to secrecy then, and said that she hadn’t liked it. Another little smile, as Kim thought about that. It had grown on her, presumably, because there had been several boys since, and Kim doubted if too many of them had been refused. When Natalie had told her about this married man, Kim had despaired of her.
Her eyes grew wide, the tears gone with the jolt of the memory. Oh, my God. What had she done? She had forgotten, completely forgotten. She had been too upset, too shocked to think straight. They had arrested Colin Cochrane, and it was all her fault, and now …
And now, Colin Cochrane was walking in the gate. He looked pale, and it was odd to see him walking in rather than driving up in his flash car. He didn’t have a tracksuit on, which was even more unusual, and he didn’t have any kit with him, but he was there.
He wasn’t under arrest. Kim almost fainted with relief.
The DI had been looking rather pleased with herself this morning, Tom had fancied.
Possibly because she had done a demolition job on his nice new theory, but in all probability her rosy glow was for a much earthier reason than that. Lloyd was looking quite chipper too.
The lab had continued the theory-busting, with a negative report on Cochrane’s clothes. But they had added that the killer’s clothes would be unlikely to have had blood on them, anyway. Any blood was likely to have been confined to the hands of her assailant, it had added. Lady Macbeth, thought Tom, darkly.
Natalie’s own clothes had a tale to tell, though. Foreign fibres: two different sorts, and a small piece of black cotton, probably from a button. A dark brown human hair that didn’t belong to Natalie. A dog hair that almost certainly belonged to Sherlock. It pointed out, smugly, Tom felt, that tracksuits didn’t have buttons, and that none of these traces came from Cochrane’s clothing. One set of fibres was grey polyester-wool, one white cotton.
But Freddie’s report suggested that the killer needn’t have come into close bodily contact with Natalie, so his theory still survived. Just.
It was, however, becoming much more likely that Mrs. Cochrane was telling the truth, and that some nutter had chanced on Natalie while Mrs. Cochrane was in the wood; she really had seen Natalie alive and found her dead.
“I’ve checked out Natalie’s computer, Sarge,” said the computer whizz-kid he had sent. “She doesn’t have a word processing program on it, and anyway she’s got a dot matrix printer. That letter was done on an inkjet.”
It was a conspiracy. His perfectly good theory was being blitzed out of existence. “What about the school?” Tom said sharply. “Don’t they have computers?”
“All schools do, I think.”
“Then get over there! See if she could have had access to a word processor with an inkjet printer, and check its files out if you find one.”
“Right, Sarge,” he said, turning away. “I get all the exciting jobs,” he muttered.
Tom followed him out into the corridor, and called him back. “We are investigating the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl,” he said, his voice low, as he quietly manoeuvred the constable into a corner. “If you find that boring, you’re in the wrong job, mate. All right?”
“Sorry, Sarge,” he said, offended.
“If those letters are in the files of any word processing program in this town, we need to find them,” Tom said. “So shift yourself, because you’re the only bugger we’ve got round here that can look for them fast enough.”
“Sarge.” He moved with a great deal more enthusiasm this time.
“Trouble?” said Judy as she came out of her office.
“No, ma’am,” said Tom. “Just motivating the staff.”
She smiled. “What did the staff have to say?” she asked.
“Natalie didn’t use her own computer if she did do those letters,” said Tom. “We’re checking out the school computers. How are you getting on with English teachers?”
“I’m not,” said Judy. “The previous one has emigrated to Canada, would you believe? The school thinks it must have samples of Natalie’s English Language work somewhere, but so far all they can offer us is the general assessment of her work that says damn all about her grammar and punctuation.”
Tom grinned. “Well, I expect the DCI could have told you that,” he said.
“They’re operating under a new system, is one excuse. They’ve only been back two days is another, and I’ve even been told that they’ve had a murder to contend with.”
“No! Really?” said Tom, then thought about the problem. “What about her geography teacher?” he said. “Or history? Some subject that she had to write about?”
“Brilliant,” Judy said. “I’ll try that.”
“Except that you think it’s a waste of time,” said Tom.
“Yes,” she said, with a sigh. “I really don’t think Natalie wrote those letters, and your staff seems to agree with me.”
“I think I’m being worn down by the weight of evidence,” said Tom. “Do you think Cochrane knows who did write them?” he asked. “And isn’t saying? He’s mixed up with someone else, and thinks that he’s damned if he says so and damned if he doesn’t?”
“He could be,” Judy said. “If the letters are true, then he’d be in big trouble.”
“But not as big as murder,” said Tom, with a sigh. “And he does get pretty weird mail.” He was reluctant to let go of his theory, but the facts really didn’t seem to fit it. “They might just be fan letters, of sorts, I suppose,” he said, and grinned. “Do you fancy him, ma’am?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I haven’t even seen the man.”
“You must have seen him on the telly,” said Tom.
“No. Everyone keeps telling me he’s famous, but I don’t know him from Adam.”
“But he’s in everything. You can’t turn the telly on without him popping up. What sort of things do you watch?”
She smiled. “I see a lot of old films,” she said.
“He’s not in them.”
She went back into her office, and Tom walked back to the murder room, where Lloyd was just putting down the phone.
“We’re going to nail this one, Tom,” he said. “We’ve got prints from Natalia’s shoes. The thumb and two fingers of someone’s right hand—not Natalia’s.”
“Yes!” said Tom, punching the air.
Lloyd looked pained. “That, DNA, the trace evidence on Natalia’s clothes … We can’t miss.”
Tom had one last go. “Are we going to ask Cochrane for a hair sample?” he asked. “And prints? She could have been in close contact with two people, remember. The fibres could belong to whoever she was with before she was killed.”
“Yes,” said Lloyd. “They could. But the fibres suggest a suit and shirt, and that doesn’t sound like an old boyfriend to me. But we will leave no stone unturned, Tom.” He grinned. “Meanwhile, could you tell Inspector Hill to draft out a possible description of the assailant’s clothing from what we’ve got? I’m going to have a word with the Super.”
“Will do, guv,” said Tom.
Lloyd opened his mouth, and shut it again. “Oh, what the hell,” he said. “There are more important things to worry about than being called guv.”
He and Judy should have a reunion more often, thought Tom, picking up the phone as Lloyd left the murder room. He might even forgive a misused comma in this mood.
Colin had never tried to work with a hangove
r before. It was going now, thank God, but it had been torture first thing. And he hadn’t had any proper kit. All his designer tracksuits were at home or with the police.
That chap Marlow had kept him up late talking, as well. He wasn’t all that sure what he’d told him, but most of it had been off the record. He had wanted to know why the police had been talking to him, so he could put his side of the story, he’d said.
Now that his head was no longer aching, Colin wondered about that. He didn’t suppose Marlow had actually heard anyone else’s side. Oh, well—the whole town knew he had been questioned, so what difference did it make?
He had just seen off his final class of the morning. He showered and changed back into his suit. He hadn’t made his usual pilgrimage to the office for his mail—he hadn’t known how to cope with Erica. Patrick was right—he should just stay out of her way until he could prove to her that he was telling the truth.
But that was easier said than done if you both worked at the same place, and he had better go and pick up his mail, or she might come here with it, and he didn’t want that.
He walked through the maze of buildings that covered what had used to be the cricket pitch, trying to make sense of what had happened to him, but he couldn’t. And now he wasn’t even living at home. The whole thing was more than a nightmare. It was as though he had been sucked into Natalie’s fantasy world and couldn’t escape.
Erica was printing out; she looked up, but then she behaved as though the printer required her total absorption in order to work.
“Is this it?” he asked, picking up a bundle of letters.
“Yes,” she said, without looking at him. “Your mail from home is beside it. One of them doesn’t have a stamp.”
“Right,” he said, scooping up the fan-mail, a normal-sized bundle today, and putting his real mail in his jacket pocket. He would normally put it in the car, but he didn’t even know if Erica had brought the car, and he wasn’t going to ask.
He didn’t go to lunch with Trudy Kane; he wasn’t hungry, and women were proving too much like trouble at the moment. Instead, he trudged back to his lair, to the gym, where he could be alone. He felt less lonely that way.
Patrick ate lunch alone at a table in the oddly quiet dining hall. Yesterday had been fraught, with the police there mob-handed, interviewing everyone who stood still long enough, but it had been easier to cope with, somehow, than today.
This morning had been both trying and tiring; he had had to think of so many things at once. Still no sign of that girl as he had sat on the stage during yet another assembly of the school, this time to listen to a talk from the police to the students, the female students in particular, about the importance of staying in pairs when going out in the evening, and even during daylight hours in lonely or secluded areas.
The head had said that students who had lessons at the Byford Road annexe could, if they wished, go the long way round rather than cross the Green, in view of what had happened. If they did use the Green, they had to ensure that no one was left straggling, and had to respect the police lines cordoning off parts of it.
Patrick had then gone to his form room to take the register, and there he had told one of his most magnificent lies ever.
He had never known Natalie, was how he had begun, for a start. Always best to get the real lie out of the way as soon as possible, he’d found.
He hadn’t known Natalie, but it was clear from the grief that pervaded the school that she had been a valued friend to many of her fellow students.
He could, he thought as he finished his salad and reached for his pudding, hazard a guess as to how many, but he had not, of course, thought that when talking to the class. At the time of the magnificent lie, he had been a new teacher, trying to help his form come to terms with the death of a pupil of whom he had known nothing more than her difficult Russian name.
Thank God it hadn’t been Smith, because he would have stumbled over it just the same when he had found himself looking at it. His heart had stopped beating when he had seen Natalie’s name. A schoolgirl? In his school? In his form? And the little bitch hadn’t said a word. Not one word. She had let him find out like that.
He wished, he had told them solemnly, that he had known her, but, sadly, having to ask how to pronounce her name when taking the register had been his only conversation with her.
All he could say to them in their bereavement was that life did kick you in the teeth from time to time, and that all you could do was show it that you wouldn’t give up, that life went on. From what he had heard of Natalie, that was a sentiment with which she would have heartily agreed. She had had spirit, and that spirit would live on.
That last bit was true, he thought. Natalie had had spirit, all right.
He had drawn a neat line through her name in the register, and had got on with his job. That had been easier. The afternoon might not be too bad.
More than six hundred letters to get out, and a printer that only did fifty sheets at a time, Erica thought, savagely pushing the paper in, pressing the key.
She had been interrupted all day, but the last time it had been a policeman, who had insisted that he had to check the files in the word processor. The headmaster, he had assured her, had said it would be all right.
It was all right for him; he wasn’t trying to get these letters out. It would be winter before she got them out at this rate.
She was trying not to think about Colin and Natalie, but it wasn’t working, and now here was Colin again, even more haggard than he had seemed before lunch. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Silly question, but that was what she said.
“That letter? The one with no stamp?”
“Yes,” she said. “What about it?”
He held it out, in its envelope. “I think you should read it,” he said, closing the office door.
Erica took it. His hand was shaking. “Colin, I think we—” she began.
“Just read it,” he said.
She pulled it out, recognizing its style before she had even unfolded it properly. She read as much of it as she needed to and looked up at her husband. “What does this mean?” she asked.
“It means,” he said, “that whoever has been writing those letters is still doing it. It means that it wasn’t Natalie. It means,” he added, his voice rising until he shouted the last few words, “that you might actually believe me at last that I had nothing to do with her!”
She stared at him, baffled. She had seen Natalie with her own eyes. “How can I believe you?” she shouted back.
“Because you’ve got that letter in your hands! You got it at the house this morning. And it didn’t come through the post. Natalie didn’t write it. Look at the bloody date, woman!”
She looked at the letter, dated the day after Natalie had died. “So she didn’t write that letter,” she said. “All that this proves is that there’s more than one. I know you were with her, Colin—I know you were there! Stop lying to me!”
“Erica!” he roared. “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t with her. I have never had anything to do with her in my life!” Colin banged his fist down on the desk with each of the final three words. “And I’m taking a blood test that will prove to you once and for all that I wasn’t with her on Tuesday night!”
The door opened, the head came in, and Erica knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Colin was telling the truth.
“Er … Mr. Cochrane, Mrs. Cochrane. I must ask you to … moderate your voices,” the head was saying.
Erica could hear him, but she wasn’t taking it in. If Colin was telling the truth, then …
“I know,” the head went on. “I do understand that you are coping with … with … a considerable crisis, but I’m afraid we do have the … school to consider.”
“Sorry,” said Colin. “It was my fault.”
No, it wasn’t, thought Erica, still shell-shocked by her realization. But surely even Patrick wouldn’t …
“Oh, no one’s to blame. I’ll—I’ll just �
� let you sort things out. If you could just … you know.”
The head escaped.
“I’m going to the police,” Colin said. “If you won’t believe me, maybe they will.”
Colin was gone; she looked at the closed door, her thoughts racing. She had to tell Colin, tell the police … she had to—
She made herself slow down, think things out. She had to talk to Patrick. But he would be in class now, she thought, looking at the clock.
Which was perhaps a good thing, because of course she should talk to Colin first. She would see him when he came back from the police. She didn’t know if he would ever forgive her, but that was a bridge that she would cross when she got there, and not before.
Hannah woke up with the sun shining into her room; she frowned, and blinked. Didn’t that make it late? She looked at the clock. It was almost two. She had slept all morning.
She hadn’t slept at night; she had done her letter and crept out of the house as soon as it got light, cycling to Ash Road and delivering it. She had only just got her nightclothes back on when her mother looked into her room; she had assumed that she had been up because she was still being sick, and Hannah hadn’t told her any different, so her mother had made a doctor’s appointment, of course, without even telling her.
But it meant that there was no question of going to school; if she could stay away long enough, Mr. Murray would realize that he had nothing to worry about.
And she might be free of this dreadful fear.
* * *
Cochrane had brought them a letter which he had thrust into Lloyd’s hands with the air of one who thought that it exonerated him.
It didn’t; now he was in an interview room with Judy sitting opposite him at the table. Lloyd had wanted her to interview Cochrane, and had been quite prepared to put Tom’s nose out of joint in order that she should do so, but, as it happened, he hadn’t had to.
