And it was true. He knew exactly why his wife had married him, and as she walked down the aisle – her stomach already bulging under her wedding dress – so did everybody else in the church.
‘It’s a mistake to start a marriage with doubts,’ the woman said miserably. ‘You think they’ll go away in time, but the longer you’re married – the more you have the chance to compare yourself to the other woman – the worse they get. And I’ll tell you another thing—’
‘I really do have to get back to work, madam,’ Harry interrupted her.
‘Of course you do,’ the woman said. ‘I’m not really being fair, am I, heaping all my troubles on you?’ She paused and took a sip of her drink. Then, finding she no longer seemed to have the urge for it, pushed it to one side. ‘I’m sorry I was rude to you earlier. That wasn’t fair, either.’
‘That’s all right, madam,’ Harry said.
The woman dismounted – awkwardly but carefully – from her stool. ‘I think I’ll go home now,’ she said.
‘Have you got your car with you?’ the barman asked.
The woman seemed confused by the question. ‘Here? In the bar?’
‘Out on the street.’
The woman thought about it. ‘Yes, I have.’
‘It might be wiser to leave it here, and take a taxi home,’ Harry counselled.
‘I’ll be all right,’ the woman said.
‘It wouldn’t be good for a lady in your condition to be stopped by the police,’ Harry argued.
‘In my condition!’ the woman said, getting angry again. ‘Are you suggesting I’m drunk?’
Yes, I bloody am, the barman thought. You’re as pissed as a rat.
‘No, I’m not suggesting that at all, madam,’ he said aloud. ‘But you have drunk more than the legal limit, and, given your husband’s position, it could be rather embarrassing all round if you were pulled over.’
The woman nodded woozily. ‘You’re right,’ she agreed. ‘Do you think you could call me a taxi, Harry?’
‘It’d be my pleasure,’ the barman said.
‘You’ve been very kind and very patient, and I really do want to thank you for that,’ the woman said.
‘Think nothing of it, Mrs Baxter,’ Harry said, reaching for the phone.
Liz had produced a bottle of Bordeaux wine and a few nibbles, and they sat on the rug in front of the fire, reminiscing.
They talked mostly about their first year at Oxford – about bicycle rides along the river; debates in the Union which had made them both feel angry and passionate; evenings of theatre in St John’s College grounds, where they had eaten strawberries and cream, and drunk Pimm’s No. I Cup.
He missed it much more than he had ever imagined he would, Crane realized. He didn’t regret his new life – far from it – but he did sometimes wish he could talk to his colleagues (who were fast becoming his closest friends) in the same way as he was talking to Liz now. Perhaps, he thought, the ideal was not to live one life, but two – Superman in the daytime, and Clark Kent at night.
‘There were times in the first year when I thought we’d be together forever,’ Liz said fondly. ‘Why did we ever break up?’
She had to be a little drunk to even ask that question, Crane thought. Or perhaps she was just so intoxicated by memories of that first year that she had temporarily forgotten how it ended.
‘Why did we break up?’ she repeated.
‘You tell me,’ Crane said. ‘You were the one who made the decision.’
‘Yes, I was, wasn’t I?’ Liz agreed, suddenly sounding more sober.
‘Then, a couple of months later, Simon came along,’ Crane said.
And Simon was everything I wasn’t, he thought – rich, cosmopolitan, self-assured . . .
‘Yes, and then Simon came along,’ Liz repeated.
Crane was not sure what to say next, and found his eyes searching the living room, as if hoping something he saw would provide him with the answer.
‘He’s not hiding in that cupboard, waiting to jump out and surprise me, is he?’ he heard himself say.
And he thought, ‘You total idiot, Jack! You completely tasteless bloody buffoon!’
‘Is that a rather clumsy way of asking me if Simon and I are still together?’ Liz asked softly.
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ Crane admitted, shamefacedly.
‘We’re not. He left me.’
‘When?’
‘Oh, some time after we all came down from Oxford.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Crane said.
‘That he left me? Or that you’ve chosen such a gauche way to acquire the information?’
‘Both.’
‘About the latter, I think I believe you,’ Liz said. ‘About the former, I’m not quite so sure.’
‘I am sorry,’ Crane protested. ‘If Simon made you happy, then I wish he’d never deserted you.’
‘That sounds very harsh – deserted me,’ Liz said. ‘And, in a way, I can’t entirely blame him for it, because he was going through a difficult time, and there was nothing I could do to help him.’
We talked quite enough about that bastard Simon, Crane thought. Let’s change the subject, shall we?
And then, something within him – some self-loathing goblin – made him say, ‘You still miss him, though, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Liz agreed. ‘I do. I think perhaps I’ll always miss him. But I’m no Miss Haversham. I’m not about to spend the rest of my life sitting around and moping over the loss. I have a good job, I have a strong purpose, and, perhaps, eventually, I’ll have love, too.’
The fire continued to gently flicker, the wine sat comfortably in his stomach, and Crane leaned over and kissed Liz warmly on the lips. If she’d pulled back, he would have apologized and left immediately, but she didn’t, and he sensed that she wanted this just as much as he did.
The phone rang.
Their lips were still locked together. Crane put a hand on Liz’s shoulder, and the gesture said, ‘Ignore it, and it will go away. Give us just another ten minutes, and we can make the whole world go away.’
But as the phone still screeched out its incessant demand to be answered, Crane heard his beeper start to buzz.
Liz pushed him gently away from her, and then stood up.
‘I’ll deal with whoever’s calling me, and then you can ring police headquarters,’ she told him. She lifted the receiver and said, ‘Dr Duffy,’ in a crisp voice which seemed to belong to quite another woman than the one she’d been moments earlier.
‘I see,’ she said, nodding as she spoke. ‘Yes, I’ve got that, and I can be there in twenty minutes. She replaced the phone on its cradle, and turned to Crane. ‘I think I know why you’ve been beeped,’ she said. ‘There’s been a second murder.’
A second murder, Crane noted – not another murder, but a second one.
The butterflies had returned to his stomach – except that this time they seemed more like large moths with metal tips on their wings.
‘It can’t have any connection to the Jill Harris case,’ he said. ‘We’ve got her killer safely behind bars.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ Liz asked.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ Crane replied, as he did his best to ignore the rampaging moths. ‘He’s confessed to the killing. What made you think there might be a connection?’
‘The victim’s about the same age as Jill, and it looks like she’s been strangled,’ Liz told him. ‘And her body was discovered in the Corporation Park.
‘Well, shit!’ Crane groaned.
FOURTEEN
There was a standing joke they had shared when they were up at Oxford – one of those which had been funny the first time it had been said, had quickly grown into a cliché through repetition, and finally become funny again precisely because it was a cliché – and as Crane parked his car next to the main gates of the corporation park, it came into his head for the first time in years.
‘This is like déjà vu all over again,’ he sai
d to Liz Duffy.
Liz chuckled.
‘Now there’s a blast from the past,’ she said. Then she instantly grew more serious and added, ‘It’s not really a laughing matter, is it?’
No, Crane agreed, it really wasn’t – not when applied to a situation in which a fresh murder bore all the hallmarks of the one for which they’d already made an arrest.
Of course, the fact that Bill Horrocks had been behind bars since that morning didn’t necessarily mean that he couldn’t also have killed the second victim, he thought hopefully, as they stepped through the park gates. The corpse could have been lying there undiscovered for some time – perhaps even for days.
Then he saw the floodlights, blazing down on a spot not fifty yards from where Jill Harris had been found, and that slim hope faded and died – because if the body had been there the day before, the officers scouring the area for clues to the first murder would almost certainly have found it.
He saw Paniatowski standing at the edge of the circle of light, as rigid if she’d been carved from stone. What had happened was bad for the whole team, he thought, but as team leader, it was bloody catastrophic for her.
Hearing the footsteps approaching from behind, the chief inspector turned.
‘Thank you for getting here so quickly, Dr Duffy,’ she said. ‘The SOCO’s have already checked out the ground around the body, so you can get to work as soon as you like.’
If Paniatowski had noticed that he and Liz had arrived together, she gave no sign of it, Crane thought – but then, she had other things on her mind.
Crane looked down at the victim, who was sprawled out close to the bushes. She was wearing a short black skirt, a red top and a beige anorak, he noted. The clothes were cheap and shoddy, and did not look particularly well cared for. The girl’s hair had been bleached blonde, but whoever had done the bleaching had not made a very good job of it, and an irregular wave of dark roots ran across the top of her skull. Her tights had been torn during the struggle, and visible through one of the holes was a crudely etched tattoo of a skull.
Liz Duffy bent down beside the cadaver. It seemed wrong – in the presence of death – to admire the graceful way in which the doctor moved, Crane told himself, but there was nothing he could do about it.
‘The body was found by a man walking his dog,’ Paniatowski told him, ‘or rather, the dog found the body, and when it didn’t come back, the man followed it into the bushes. We don’t have any identification yet – no handbag, no library card – but I’d guess she’s probably about the same age as Jill Harris.’
‘So would I,’ Crane said.
‘And it’s not really surprising there’s no library card,’ said Colin Beresford, who had only just arrived. ‘I doubt this girl’s ever thought of going into a library in her whole bloody life.’
‘And now she never will,’ Paniatowski said. ‘We need to get her identified as soon as possible. Can I leave it to you to see that a sketch of her appears on all the late-night news programmes, Colin?’
‘I’ll get on it right away,’ Beresford promised. He paused. ‘Has the chief constable been informed?’
‘Not directly, but Sergeant Meadows has rung and left a message,’ Paniatowski said gloomily, ‘which probably means that by morning he’ll be back here, breathing down our necks. And who could blame him?’
Liz Duffy stood up, and peeled off her surgical gloves.
‘There’s not a great deal more I can do here, so as soon as the ambulance arrives, I’ll take the body down to the morgue,’ she said.
‘Is there anything you can tell us now?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Not much, I’m afraid. The victim hasn’t been mutilated in any obvious way, and I’d say that, on first appearances, she hasn’t been sexually assaulted either – but I’ll have a clearer idea on that when I’ve cut her open. The cause of death was strangulation – as you can see for yourself.’
‘Was she strangled in the same way as the previous victim?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘What you’re really asking me is if it could have been the same killer, aren’t you?
‘Yes.’
‘In each case, the killer had quite large hands, but a lot of men do, and if you were to ask me if DC Crane would have left a similar pattern of bruising if he’d choked this girl to death, then I’d have to say yes. And there’s not much scope for variation in manual strangulation, so it would be almost impossible for the killer to have left his “signature” on his victim.’
‘I see,’ Paniatowski said despondently. ‘Can you at least tell me how long she’s been dead?’
‘The body’s still warm, so I’d say it’s between two and three hours – but again, I’ll have a much better idea when I’ve opened her up.’
Crane felt an unexpected burden of guilt suddenly descend on him. Three hours ago, Liz was just opening a bottle of Bordeaux. Two hours ago, they were having a chat about the jolly times they had had in Oxford. And at some point between those two things, this girl was having the life choked out of her.
It wasn’t his fault, he told himself. He couldn’t have known. Yet he could not shake the feeling that he was partly responsible – that instead of recapturing his youth, he should have been out looking for this killer.
The ambulance men had arrived, and were carefully lifting the body onto a stretcher.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could get the results of the autopsy to me as quickly as possible, Liz,’ Paniatowski said.
Duffy nodded. ‘Understood. I’ll work through the night, if that’s what’s necessary.’
Well, that was his cosy evening buggered, Crane thought.
What in God’s name is the matter with me? he asked himself. One second I’m weighed down with guilt, and the next I seem to have lost all perspective on what’s actually important.
It was meeting Liz again that had done it, he decided – meeting her again had turned his world upside down.
The ambulance men lifted the stretcher off the ground, and carried it towards the waiting ambulance. Dr Duffy followed them.
Paniatowski turned to Crane. ‘I’ve got something I have to do right now, but it shouldn’t take me more than an hour, and I’ll see you all in the Drum,’ she said heavily.
‘Are you going to see Bill Horrocks?’ Crane guessed.
‘Yes, of course I’m going to see Bill Horrocks,’ Paniatowski snapped waspishly. ‘What else would you expect me to do?’
‘Would you like me to come with you, boss?’ Crane asked.
Paniatowski shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘This is something I have to do alone.’
Paniatowski was sitting in the interview room – awaiting what she was almost sure would be a confirmation of her failure – when the door opened and the custody sergeant ushered in William Horrocks.
Horrocks had put on years since that morning. His eyes were hollow, his gait faltering, and had there not been a chair at the table for him to sink down into, he might well have collapsed.
‘You’re going to prison, Bill. You do understand that, don’t you?’ Paniatowski asked.
Horrocks nodded – it was no more than a tiny movement of his head, but even that seemed to take him a great deal of effort.
‘And it won’t be like the last time you were sent there,’ Paniatowski continued. ‘They won’t be opening the gate and letting you out after just three years. It’ll be twenty years – maybe more – before you see the light of day again. Do you understand that?’
Horrocks nodded again.
‘I need to hear you say it, William,’ Paniatowski told him.
‘Yes, I understand,’ Horrocks croaked.
‘So tell me again what you did.’
‘I don’t want—’
Paniatowski slammed her hand down on the table.
‘Tell me!’ she said.
‘I saw the girl in the yellow top in the park . . .’
‘What time was this?’
‘About five o’clock.’
&
nbsp; ‘And what did you do?’
‘I followed her into the bushes, and I strangled her.’
‘Did she fight back?’
‘A little. But I was much too strong for her.’
‘I can understand you killing her, William,’ Paniatowski said. ‘After all, you were only following God’s instructions. But did He also tell you to smash her face in so badly that she was almost unrecognizable?’
‘No, He . . .’
‘Then why did you do it?’
‘She . . . she was struggling. I had to do something to stop her struggling.’
‘I thought you said she couldn’t really fight back, because you were much too strong for her.’
‘That’s true.’ Horrocks’ brow furrowed as he searched for an answer to the apparent contradiction. ‘I don’t know why I did it,’ he said, giving up on the task. ‘I . . . I think I must have panicked.’
‘I lied to you just now,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Her face was completely unmarked.’
‘Then maybe I’ve remembered it wrong,’ Horrocks said helplessly.
‘You didn’t kill her, did you?’ Paniatowski demanded.
‘I saw her in the park . . .’ Horrocks mumbled.
‘I know you saw her in the park. You wouldn’t have known about the yellow top if you hadn’t. But you didn’t kill her, did you?’
‘No,’ Horrocks admitted. ‘I didn’t kill her. I wanted to. God wanted me to. But she looked so small and helpless that I just couldn’t.’
‘So why did you confess? Why did you condemn yourself to twenty years inside?’
‘Because if I hadn’t confessed, it would have been admitting to you that I was a coward.’
She’d put that idea in his head, she realized.
If you didn’t obey the Lord’s command, then you are a coward and a sinner, she’d said. There’s simply no other way of looking at it.
‘Why would it matter if I knew you were a coward?’ she asked.
‘I thought you’d tell my Thelma,’ Horrocks said. ‘And if she knew I was a coward, she’d never come back to me.’
FIFTEEN
There was no invisible cordon around the team’s table in the Drum and Monkey that night, but there might as well have been. All the other regular drinkers were giving the table a wide berth, and few – if any – were even glancing in that direction.
A Walk With the Dead Page 14
