Daughters of Darkness

by Sally Spencer

  Stockton walks over to a large roll-top desk that dominates the centre of the room. Beside it is a table on which books and papers are laid out with such apparent precision that they almost form a rather attractive geometrical pattern.

  Stockton sits down at the desk, opens one of the drawers, and extracts a large sheet of headed notepaper.

  ‘Grace and I chose this place because of its relative isolation,’ he says, uncapping his fountain pen. ‘There are times when you need a few days completely to yourself, so you can think and work, and in town you’re always getting interrupted, however clear you make it to your friends that you don’t want to be. I used to congratulate us on our cleverness in choosing it, but now I feel that if only we’d settled somewhere closer to other people …’ His voice falters.

  ‘Then your wife would have been found earlier than she was, but she would still have been dead,’ I interject.

  He nods. I’m sure it is not the first time he has heard that particular argument, but he seems to draw some small comfort from it anyway.

  He quickly fills the page with clear, decisive handwriting, folds the paper neatly, and inserts it in an envelope that he produces from one of the other drawers in the desk.

  He holds out the envelope for me, but as I reach out for it, he suddenly jerks it away.

  ‘I want something in return for this,’ he says.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘I love my daughter with all my heart and soul,’ he tells me with an intensity which electrifies the air. ‘I would do anything for her.’

  ‘I can see that,’ I reply.

  ‘I want you to promise that if you uncover anything that will hurt her, you will keep it from her,’ he says.

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  Stockton waves his hands helplessly in the air. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. He pauses. ‘Have you ever had a dream where there is no image – just a deep, all-pervading darkness?’

  I shudder slightly, because I know exactly what he means.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘And there is something in that darkness that you fear, though you have no idea what it is?’

  I nod.

  ‘It’s like that. Perhaps, in that darkness, my wife committed some terrible act – and it was that which got her killed. Like most of our fears, it’s probably baseless, but if it turns out that she did do something terrible, finding out about it would have a devastating effect on my daughter.’

  ‘And what effect would the discovery have on you?’

  ‘It would devastate me, too, of course – but I don’t matter.’

  ‘So you want me to hide anything hurtful from her, even if it means that her mother’s killer goes unpunished?’

  ‘Even then.’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t make that promise.’

  ‘Why not?’ he sneers, his face suddenly filled with contempt. ‘Is it because when you chose your so-called profession you signed some seedy investigators’ version of the Hippocratic Oath?’

  ‘No,’ I reply, coldly. ‘It’s because it was her mother who was killed, and she’s entitled to know the truth.’

  The mask of contempt collapses, to reveal that what it was hiding was the face of an injured puppy.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ he says. ‘She is entitled to know. And I’m so sorry for suggesting that you were a seedy investigator.’ He hands me the envelope. ‘Good luck, Miss Redhead. I hope we never need to meet again, but if we do, you know where I am.’

  SEVENTEEN

  7th May, 1944

  Grace went straight back to the King’s Head. She had been there filling in her survey just before she met Jane, but then she had been in the saloon, and now she entered the public bar.

  It was a much rougher looking place than the saloon (the latter had pictures on the wall and was carpeted, the former had brass spittoons and sawdust on the floor) – and the customers perfectly reflected the decor.

  The landlord looked slightly alarmed to see her there.

  ‘Back again so soon, miss? Well, I suppose it must be very thirsty work talking to all those people, and if you’d care to go round to the saloon bar, I’ll pour you a nice glass of shandy on the house.’

  ‘I’d like to address your customers,’ Grace said.

  ‘What? In here?’ the landlord replied – and now he was definitely looking worried.

  ‘In here,’ Grace agreed. ‘And to be perfectly honest with you, I’m going to do it with or without your cooperation.’

  The landlord’s concern grew visibly, but he banged on the counter with a pint pot and said, ‘Pay attention, lads. This lady from the ministry wants to talk to you, and you’ll listen politely or have me to answer to.’

  Grace stood with her back against the bar, facing the drinkers. They were a rough lot, with missing teeth and prominent tattoos. Most of them would be dockers and labourers, she thought, but there was probably a fair smattering of minor criminals as well.

  ‘There’s a woman who sometimes stands across the road from this pub and sells her sex for money,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve seen her, and I wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole,’ one of the men called out.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ another man shouted. ‘I’ve seen you with her, and it definitely wasn’t a barge pole you were using.’

  The other men burst into ribald laughter, and the landlord said, ‘Now then, now then, remember you’re in the presence of a lady, lads.’

  ‘She is pregnant, and she uses the money she gets from you to buy drink, which is very harmful to her unborn baby,’ Grace said. ‘That’s why I don’t want any of you to have anything to do with her anymore.’

  ‘Why don’t you mind your own business, you posh bitch,’ one of the men called out from behind his hand.

  ‘Yeah, keep your nose out of it,’ another added.

  Grace spoke a few sentences in slow, heavily ceremonial Trinka, and the bar fell uneasily quiet.

  ‘I was brought up in Papua New Guinea, and that is a Trinka curse,’ she said, reverting to English. ‘I have been trained in the mysteries of Trinka magic, and I have the power to do many terrible things, but the one that’s probably of the most interest to you is that I can make a man’s testicles rot and fall off – and that is the power I will use on any man who goes near that woman again.’

  Most of the men twitched uncomfortably – some even felt their crotches for reassurance – but one brave soul said, ‘What a load of bloody rubbish. I don’t believe a word of it.’

  ‘Put your tackle on the table, and I’ll prove it,’ Grace said. ‘With everyone watching, I’ll make your balls turn green.’

  ‘Go on, do it,’ someone said.

  The ‘brave’ man shrugged his shoulders, awkwardly. ‘No, I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘I’m not the sort of bloke to expose his crown jewels to a woman he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Or, at least, to a woman who you haven’t paid for,’ one of his pals ribbed him.

  ‘I don’t need to look,’ Grace told him. ‘It will work even if I’ve got my back turned. So go on – get it out, and give your mates a laugh.’

  ‘This is bloody ridiculous,’ the man said. Then he stood up and rushed towards the exit.

  ‘This is your only warning,’ Grace said to the rest of the men, in her most impressive voice. ‘If you disobey me, I will know – and I will punish you.’

  To stay longer would be to diminish her effect. She left through the same door the frightened man had, but whereas he had done it in a mad, embarrassed dash, she made an awesome, stately progress.

  Once outside, she took a deep breath. Her hands were trembling and her heart was thumping, but she thought she had pulled it off.

  The men would not go near Jane again – the rest was up to Jane herself.

  PART TWO

  Tuesday 28th October, 1975

  EIGHTEEN

  When I woke up this morning there was a light layer of frost covering my window panes, and opening the win
dow to clean it off, I caught sight of my first robin redbreast of the year.

  Ah, the cute little robin. There may be Christmas cards of winter scenes which do not contain images of this best known – and best loved – of winter birds, but they are few and far between, because robins are small and delicate and beautiful, and just the sight of one of them conjures up ideas of sleigh rides and Christmas trees, log fires and chestnuts roasting. They are, in so many ways, the harbinger of the festive season.

  They are also extremely vicious creatures that have been known to attack other species without the slightest provocation.

  Any other robin which invades their territory is, equally, shown no mercy. Up to ten per cent of robins are killed by other robins. They have tiny beaks, but driven by determination and bloodlust, a robin will peck the interloper to death – the equivalent, I suppose, of me killing someone with a penknife.

  But even though a robin may well have had the stomach for it, it was not one of our little feathered friends that decapitated Grace Stockton, which is why I am now in one of the interview rooms in St Aldate’s police station, with the file on the investigation into Grace’s murder laid out on the table before me.

  I am not alone in this confession extraction chamber. Beside me at the table, and acting like someone completely at home – which, in fact, he is – sits my old friend DS George Hobson.

  ‘Take your time with it, Jennie,’ George says expansively. ‘There’s absolutely no rush.’

  ‘There isn’t any need for you to stay,’ I tell him.

  ‘You might get lonely by yourself,’ he says, with an awkward, lop-sided grin.

  ‘I won’t,’ I promise him. ‘I’ll be perfectly happy with my own company, George.’

  ‘Or you might need something explaining to you.’

  ‘If I do, I’ll make a note of it, and ask you later.’

  He doesn’t move.

  ‘I’m sure you have some very important detecting work that you need to be doing, and since we don’t want the wheels of justice to grind to a halt, why don’t you just run along,’ I say helpfully.

  ‘I’ve been assigned to stay with you for the whole of the morning,’ George replies.

  ‘In other words, the Thames Valley Police may have asked for my help – I might say, almost pleaded for it …’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘… but they don’t entirely trust me.’

  George shrugs. ‘You’re a civilian,’ he says, as if that explains it all – and in a way, I suppose it does. ‘Besides, you can never quite trust somebody who is offered her old job back – with a virtual guarantee of promotion built into that offer – and yet turns it down.’

  It’s quite true what he’s saying. I was offered it by DCI Macintosh, and I did turn it down – because although it had almost broken my heart when I was forced to resign, I soon grew to like the freedom that the precarious life of a private eye affords me.

  George tips back his chair and folds his arms. Whatever I say, the gesture informs me, he has no intention of going anywhere.

  I open the file. The narrative begins with the transcript of the phone call Dr Derek Stockton made to the police on the afternoon when he realized his wife was not at home, and then continues with details of the interview that George had conducted with him.

  ‘How did Stockton seem to you?’ I ask.

  ‘Like a man who was used to being in control of himself, and who was trying his best to maintain his front despite the nightmare he seemed to be living through,’ George says.

  And still, three years on, that description would still pretty much fit him, I think.

  The report continues with details of the meticulous police work which led to the tracking of Duffle Coat Woman’s movements.

  ‘Dr Stockton thinks Duffle Coat Woman never intended to murder Mrs Stockton,’ I say.

  ‘That’s good to know,’ George replies, ‘because I always like to hear whatever assessment amateurs make of a murder – and it’s particularly valuable when the amateur in question is personally emotionally involved.’

  ‘Fair point,’ I’m forced to agree. Then I think back to the conversation that we had in the Bulldog. ‘Hang about,’ I tell him. ‘You said yourself the fact she was asking for Grace’s address on Oxford station probably meant that she had no intention of killing her.’

  ‘I didn’t claim it wasn’t a possibility,’ he answers, blithely. ‘I merely said that I rarely appreciate advice from amateurs. The fact that she didn’t seem to mind the cameras when she arrived, but took care to avoid them when she was leaving, would seem to indicate she was aware of some change in her circumstances. On the other hand, if she was trying to look inconspicuous, why didn’t she ditch that bright red duffle coat much earlier?’

  ‘What!’ I exclaim. ‘Say that again.’

  ‘She left the duffle coat in the women’s toilets at the railway station, but if she’d wanted to go unnoticed, she should have got rid of it before she even arrived at the station.’

  ‘It’s not that bit I’m interested in,’ I say, impatiently. ‘It’s the bit about the colour of the duffle coat.’

  ‘It was bright red – almost scarlet.’

  Almost scarlet! There was no way you could tell that from the surveillance tape, because that was in black and white.

  ‘I didn’t know they made duffle coats in red,’ I admit. ‘I thought they only came in dark blue and green.’

  ‘You’re wrong about that. They make them in brown and yellow, as well,’ George tells me. ‘But where you are right is that they don’t make any duffle coats in red.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘It had been dyed. And according to the boys in the lab, whoever dyed it knew what he was doing.’

  Why would someone dye a duffle coat? I ask myself.

  Maybe a young art student, trying to show originality, might do it.

  But would a woman in late middle age feel such a need?

  That seems highly unlikely.

  The file goes on to reveal the use that had been made of the still photograph. It had been published in the national press – which I vaguely remember from the time – but in addition, copies had been sent to any police station which was situated in close proximity to the London to Birmingham railway line. As always, police switchboards had been jammed with people claiming to know the woman, but they had all been mistaken, deluded or mischievous.

  The report continues with a description of how the body was found in the bluebell woods, and how, once it had been disinterred, the team conducted a fruitless search for the head.

  ‘So looked at all-in-all, the investigation really doesn’t add up to much, does it?’ I say to George Hobson.

  ‘That’s a bit harsh, Jennie,’ he replies. ‘I admit, it hasn’t exactly achieved a lot, but …’

  ‘Let’s have a look at what it hasn’t achieved,’ I suggest. ‘You’ve no idea who the woman was, where she came from, why she killed Grace Stockton or where she went after that. Is that fair enough?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You don’t even know that she did actually kill Grace. Maybe Grace was already dead and buried by the time she got to the manor.’

  ‘Now that’s not likely, is it?’ George asks. ‘It would be too much of a coincidence that some other person – the real killer – and our mystery woman both visited the place within a few hours of each other.’

  ‘Coincidences do happen,’ I point out.

  ‘So say for the moment that Duffle Coat Woman is an innocent party,’ George says. ‘There was no sign of violence at the manor – I know that because I was there myself – so when she arrives, there’s neither hide nor hair of the woman she’s come to see. OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But instead of waiting around to see if Grace Stockton turns up, she takes the next train back to London. And after coming all that way, she doesn’t even bother to leave a note. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘May
be.’

  ‘All of which means that she’s completely unaware that any crime has been committed? Am I right?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I agree, but I’m well aware that the ground I’m standing on is turning out to be a bit of a swamp.

  ‘So why, when she reads about the murder in the paper – when she sees her own picture in the paper – and realizes the police are looking for her, doesn’t she report to the nearest police station?’

  ‘Perhaps she’s too frightened to.’

  ‘OK, that’s a possibility,’ George concedes. ‘But let’s go back a little – if she doesn’t know a crime has been committed, why does she hide herself from the cameras at the railway station?’

  He has a point.

  ‘Is it possible she was deliberately drawing attention to herself when she arrived?’ I ask.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘By stopping people and asking them where Grace Stockton lived, she was making herself memorable. And that would have been so easy to avoid.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Finding out where Grace lived before she arrived wouldn’t have been very difficult at all. She’s in the phone book, and she’s in the university listings. And even if she wasn’t, there’s probably some sort of institute of anthropologists with the information, and her publishers will certainly have had an address that they could have been conned into revealing. If I’d been looking for her, I’d have tracked her down in less than an hour.’

  ‘And if I’d have been an American with lightning reactions, who wasn’t afraid of flying, I could have a souvenir sample of moon rock on my mantelpiece right now.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe you would have tracked her down in less than an hour – but you’re a college graduate, an ex-copper and a private detective,’ George says. ‘You know how to do research. But there are a lot of people who don’t.’

  Again, that’s true enough. It’s either the height of arrogance or the depth of humility to assume that if you can do something yourself, it must be easy – and maybe it’s both (or neither) depending on the circumstances.