The Primrose Switchback

by Jo Bannister

  “In that case,” Rosie said levelly, “tell us why.”

  His eyes fell. “She worked for that” – a suitable adjective eluded him – “TV programme. They were going to … do me.” He said it as if he meant rape. “She set me up. She was really friendly, I liked her – and then she sprang this on me. I told her to drop it, I wanted nothing to do with it. She said the programme was going out anyway, I might as well have my say. She said I was going to make her famous. That we were both going to be famous, only she’d enjoy it more.”

  “And you killed her.”

  His chin sank on his chest. “Yes.”

  “With a knife you just happened to have taken to the railway station.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was it?”

  After a moment he looked up. “What?”

  “This knife. It had a blade long enough to reach up under her ribs into her heart. It would have poked a hole in your pocket. So how did you carry it?”

  “In my hand, I suppose.”

  “And nobody noticed? You met her on the platform, surrounded by other passengers, and nobody noticed you had a knife in your hand?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Where did you first meet her?”

  “What?”

  “Come on, Shad,” Rosie said sharply, “you say you’ve got your memory back. So where did you first meet Jackie Pickering? She approached you, she was really friendly – so where did you first meet?”

  “I … I …” But he didn’t remember. “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you go to the station?”

  “To meet her.”

  “Why there?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

  “How did you get hurt?”

  “Hurt?”

  “Shad, you had a head injury! We assumed that whoever killed the girl hit you and left you in the wagon. If you killed the girl, how did you hurt your head and why were you still on the train when it got to Crewe?”

  “I must have walked into something, knocked myself out.”

  “In an empty goods wagon? What do you suppose happened? You stabbed her, you held her while she died, then you put her down and head-butted the wall?” Rosie sniffed sourly. “I’m not surprised Marsh won’t arrest you on the strength of this. Arthur’s right, it makes no sense. Maybe you killed that girl and maybe you didn’t, but it’s no use telling me you remember what happened when you can’t answer basic questions about it.”

  “I’m not lying!” he shouted, resentment and misery surging in a pastiche of anger. He hated having to keep saying it. He’d thought that confessing to Marsh would be the worst part. But he’d expected that to be the end, that justice would then take its course. He hadn’t expected to be disbelieved, to have to keep insisting on his guilt. “Why should I? Why would that make more sense? I may not remember everything, but I remember what I did. I killed her. I stabbed her, and she died. She threatened me and I killed her. Is that basic enough for you?”

  “Truthfully?” asked Rosie. “No. You’re giving us edited high-lights when what we need is the whole movie. Not only what but why and how. The details you can’t recall: they’re not the icing on the cake, they’re what the cake’s made of. A snapshot may not be a lie but it proves nothing. Without a context you don’t know what any single image represents. The Birth of Venus? – or a memorial to a naked pearl fisher who took an incautious step into a giant clam? The Death of Marat? – or a man falling asleep after adding bath salts to his grocery list? Liberty Leading the People? – or Will somebody grab Aunty Joan before she whips off more than her vest?”

  Despite the gravity of the situation Prufrock, who had the education to appreciate her artistic allusions, could not resist a little smile. Shad stared at her without comprehension. He was talking about murder. She was wittering on about a bunch of people he didn’t know.

  He’d never committed a crime before. All he knew was what he’d learnt from TV. The scene with the prisoner’s friends was meant to end either with them turning their backs on him or, more humiliatingly, in gushing pity. All right, so Rosie Holland was never going to gush; and he hadn’t thought either of them would react to the crisis by pretending not to know him, though he’d have understood if they had. What he couldn’t understand was what good they thought blank denial would do. If there’d been any doubt he’d have valued their support. But there wasn’t. He knew what he’d done, he remembered doing it, felt oddly diminished by their search for another explanation. He didn’t want to wriggle out of the consequences through a gap in the evidence. Sticking stubbornly to the truth about her death was all he could do for Jackie Pickering to set against the monstrous wrong he had done her; and it wasn’t much.

  “Please,” he struggled, “I know you mean well” – the deadliest words in the language – “but you’re making it worse. I don’t know how I let things go so far, but I did; and the girl’s dead and I can’t bring her back. I can’t make it right. All I can do is tell the truth.”

  “Shad,” said Rosie softly, “have you thought what prison’s going to mean to you?”

  Of course he had. Fear crossed his face like a moon shadow. “It’s meant to be hard.”

  “Not as hard as it’ll be for you. Please, give us a chance to help. I know you think you’re to blame for this, but it’s just possible that you’re wrong. Help us to find out.”

  But he shook his head, mute with despair. It was as if she’d asked his help in proving the earth was flat. He knew better.

  Prufrock stood up. All they were doing was grinding salt in his wounds. He was still too stunned to consider the matter objectively. “All right. Perhaps we should go now, leave you in peace. We’ll come back in a day or two. In the meantime, give some thought to what Rosie says. Until we know the full story we can’t be sure we understand any part of it.”

  Shad was too exhausted to argue any more. He just nodded. “OK.”

  In the doorway Rosie turned back – to wish him well, to tell him to look after himself, not to worry too much – pathetic little clichés that would serve only to underscore the helplessness of his situation. But she never got it out. Instead she saw what he’d managed to keep to himself until then.

  Thinking himself alone, he’d relaxed just enough to let the horror surge back. All around him, separated by mere masonry, were people living their worst nightmares: racked bodies craving drink and drugs, hag-ridden spirits riding on the air, taking any escape they could find. It was like an explosion in a distress factory. A natural psychic too sensitive to ignore the onslaught, too unschooled to defend himself against it, he couldn’t keep it at bay. Pain ripped through his eyes and twisted up his face as if the torch of a flame-thrower had swept across his body. It hurt that much. It would go on hurting.

  Prufrock hadn’t seen, and Rosie saw no need to add to his grief by telling him. She swept out of the room and down the corridor and didn’t speak again until they were back at the car.

  Then she said, with granite determination, “We have got to get him out of there.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Marsh was sympathetic but not much help. “It’s not me keeping him there. He could leave today.”

  “He thinks he killed someone. He won’t leave until you convince him otherwise.”

  The detective breathed heavily. “That isn’t actually my job. I want to find out what happened, certainly. That may clear Lucas or it may not. Either way it may take some time.”

  “Time that Shad’s going through hell!”

  “I can’t do much about that, Ms Holland,” said Harry Marsh tersely.

  “Then we’ll have to.”

  “Don’t get in my way,” he warned her.

  “Hard to see how we can,” she retorted, heading for his door, “when we’ll be out there trying to discover who killed Jackie Pickering, and you’ll be sitting on your hands in here.”

  Prufrock waited till she’d calmed down before asking carefully, “When we’ll
be doing what?”

  Rosie threw up a hand in despair. “I have no idea why I said that. Mainly to annoy him, I think.” She glanced at her friend, a faint glitter in her eye. “All the same, there might be something we can do.”

  Prufrock smiled. “That’s what I hoped you meant.”

  “I’m not proposing to turn private detective. Only, our job is easier than Marsh’s. He has to find out who killed the girl. We only have to show that Shad didn’t.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  Neither the ex-schoolmaster nor the ex-pathologist had ever conducted a criminal investigation. But Rosie had never let inexperience stand in her way. “I can think of two people who may be able to cast some light: Jackie Pickering, and her best friend Debbie Burgess.”

  “Except that one’s dead, and our only way to the other is through the father who is the best suspect we have except for Shad.”

  Rosie didn’t see a problem. “Dead witnesses are much more reliable than live ones. They don’t lie, they don’t exaggerate, they don’t shy away from the consequences. You might not always understand what they’re saying, you might sometimes take them up wrong, but it’s always the truth. As to Burgess, we were always going to have to talk to him sooner or later. Now we have to do it sooner.”

  “No,” insisted Prufrock, “we don’t. Detective Superintendent Marsh does. Talk to him, tell him what you suspect.”

  “I will,” promised Rosie; “just as soon as I know what it is I’m telling him. What this court case was; what he might have done that Jackie still hated him for this long after. Why she thought him a bastard.”

  “Marsh can do all that.”

  “But will he? He hasn’t the same incentive we have. I’m not going to do anything stupid, Arthur, I just want to get the ball rolling.”

  “You’ll phone Burgess?” Prufrock couldn’t see how even Rosie could get into too much trouble over the phone. He had momentarily forgotten that Jackie Pickering had.

  “I want to know about this court case first. Where do I find out?”

  She really should have known. “The local paper. They’ll have it in their back issues.”

  “Right. Arthur, can I leave that to you? Will you call them – it’ll have to be tomorrow now, the office is probably shut – see what you can find out? And I’ll go round to the hospital pathology department, see what the autopsy report says. It may give us useful information about both of them, Jackie and her killer.”

  Prufrock nodded, still without much enthusiasm. “And then we pass it over to Mr Marsh. Seriously, Rosie, I think this is his province.”

  “Oh, so do I,” agreed Rosie acrimoniously. “But his priorities are different. He wants to solve the crime; I only want to get Shad home. I’m hoping we can do that faster. Once we’ve persuaded him he’s not responsible for this, the police can take as long as they need to catch whoever is. But I want him out of there, Arthur. Before it destroys him.”

  Jackie Pickering’s death was as suspicious as they come so the autopsy had been carried out as a special. Doctor Sharma performed it as soon as the body was returned from Holyhead, on the Thursday afternoon when he should have been at his youngest son’s birthday party. In a career waymarked by the dead, many of them taken before their time, he would always remember Jackie Pickering with particular fondness.

  Rosie had never met him, though she was aware of his reputation as he was probably aware of hers. Pathologists always know one another, at least by repute. Some of them hardly know anyone else.

  Two years ago Rosie could have walked down the discreet steps behind Skipley General Hospital that led to the basement mortuary, introduced herself to Yussuf Sharma and immediately been welcomed as a kindred spirit. He’d have known about her contribution to solving the Jacuzzi Murders in Bristol; she’d have complimented him on identifying the cause of death in the bizarre case of the Telford Toad-Licker; and they’d have been giggling like old friends within minutes.

  She wondered what kind of a welcome she could count on as the Chronicle’s Agony Aunt. Working for a newspaper opened many doors, and didn’t stop a conversation in its tracks the same way, but just this once it would have been nice to be able to drop the name of a hospital.

  Sharma was a big man of about forty, square and solid, with the pronounced nasal twang of the Birmingham native. Birmingham is one of the great melting pots of Europe: it’s no coincidence that so many people with nothing going for them but talent have made their fortunes in the Second City. Sharma himself was a second-generation Brummie; and as a local man he knew both who Rosie was and who she used to be. When she appeared in his basement domain soon after he did on Wednesday morning he welcomed her gravely and asked how he could help.

  When she told him, his dark eyes like melted chocolate opened wide and then shut in a mute demonstration of good nature taken advantage of. “I’m sorry …” he began.

  Rosie shook her head crisply. “Don’t be sorry, you obviously haven’t understood. I’m not here to obstruct justice but to assist it. Call Detective Superintendent Marsh if you like, he’ll have no problems about you talking to me.”

  “Even so …” But Doctor Sharma got no further with his second sentence than with his first.

  “OK,” said Rosie, “let’s cut the crap here. Shad Lucas, who’s the prime suspect for this crime, is a friend of mine. He thinks he did it; neither Marsh nor I are convinced. But if he is charged he’ll have the right to nominate an independent Forensic Medical Examiner to carry out a second post mortem. I am both qualified and experienced, so we both know who he’ll ask for if that situation arises.

  “What I’m suggesting is that we spare the deceased’s family the trauma of a second autopsy if at all possible. Talk to me. Let’s get our heads together and see if we can sort out what the poor girl’s trying to tell us.”

  “Actually,” murmured Dr Sharma, “I’ve already done that.”

  Rosie let out the gust of laughter that was her secret weapon. Most people found it impossible to be angry with someone who laughed like that. “Of course you have. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. But we’re both working in the same cause so it makes sense to pool our knowledge. For instance, I know things about the accused person that you don’t. Could this murder have been committed in the way it was by someone with achondroplasia?”

  Sharma stared at her in astonishment. “The suspect is a dwarf? Nobody told me! That alters …”

  She’d let him finish a couple of sentences now. If they knew one another long enough, some day she’d let him finish a paragraph. She shook her head. “No, he isn’t. That’s my point: you didn’t know, and I did. We can help one another. All it needs is a little professional courtesy.”

  The pathologist could have fended her off a while longer but not for ever. She was right: an accused person has certain rights. If he didn’t want her unpicking his stitches he might as well cooperate now. “What do you want to know?”

  She wanted to know if he’d found anything that ruled out Shad Lucas as the killer. She wasn’t expecting anything conclusive, would have settled for something that merely cast doubt on his newly recovered memory. Even that proved elusive.

  Rosie could tell from his report that Sharma had done a thorough job. There was no point pressing for another autopsy on the grounds that he might have missed something. Anything the body of Jackie Pickering could tell them was already in his notes.

  After they’d been over the physical findings they reviewed the blood work. Still there was nothing to cast fresh light on the events behind Skipley station.

  “I’m wasting your time, aren’t I?” Rosie admitted at last. “I’m sorry. I hoped – I don’t know – there’d be something to say she’d been killed by a six-foot-three, left-handed Presbyterian with a rare skin complaint. Stupid, isn’t it? You’d think I’d have done enough of these to know that’s not how it works. But it’s different when someone you care about is involved. You think the answers have to be there so
mewhere.”

  “It’s a common mistake,” nodded Sharma. “Confusing pathology with alchemy. Policemen make it all the time.”

  Rosie managed a rueful grin. “They certainly did in my time. I believe I may have told them as much, now and again.”

  There wasn’t very much left to say. She’d pinned a fair bit of hope on this visit, had thought the biggest problem would be getting the man to talk to her, was disappointed that even with his help she’d been unable to advance her case. She thanked him and headed for the door. Sharma showed her out.

  “I hope things work out for your friend. At least, if he didn’t do it I do.”

  “That’s my problem too,” acknowledged Rosie feelingly. “I want him not to have done it. But if he did do it, I don’t know what the hell I want.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “He’s a gardener. Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked at him; he was wondering whether to say something. Her gaze decided him. “Look, it was only something that occurred to me – it probably doesn’t mean much. A gardener? Well, maybe; he’ll be used to using tools, I suppose, even knives. Though I’d have thought …”

  Rosie stopped and made him face her. “Doctor Sharma, what are you wittering about?”

  He collected his thoughts. “The wound. There was only one – well, you saw the report. It was very clean. He didn’t have to hack at her. He inserted the point of a long blade under her ribs and directed it up into her heart. Now, that could have been luck. In the same way that an infinite number of monkeys playing with an infinite number of typewriters will eventually write Hamlet, sheer luck will occasionally let the clumsiest assailant produce a surgical murder. But I wondered if the man who did this had some specialist knowledge.”

  He gave an embarrassed smile. “I said as much to my porter; we have a little bet riding on it. I thought it would be a butcher: they’re used to handling knives, they’re familiar with anatomy and accustomed to killing efficiently. But Lenny reads a lot of paperbacks: he plumped for a professional assassin. Neither of us considered a gardener. Well, you can’t be right all the time.”