Bright Young Things Read online

  ‘I like Violet. She has a good head on her shoulders. This is a terrible business, Henry, perhaps not a good way of returning to work.’

  Mickey was amused. ‘No, we should probably have arranged a nice simple little murder for him,’ he said. ‘Someone known to the victim, bashing the victim over the head, how would that have been?’

  Cynthia laughed. ‘I don’t suppose you get many of those.’

  ‘The local constabularies are usually perfectly capable of dealing with the simple crimes. It’s more complex ones like this that require the services of Sergeant Mickey Hitchens and Chief Inspector Johnstone,’ Mickey told her pompously. Then he grinned at Cynthia. ‘We’ll sort it, you see if we don’t.’

  Henry had played a hunch – that Caxton’s factotum, Victor Mullins, might have a record. In that he’d been disappointed, but his second hunch that there might be some record of him as a boxer, had he actually had professional fights, had paid off. He’d asked that someone be sent to do a round of the newspaper morgues and consult the sports sections and that turned up the goods. Vic Mullins indeed had a professional record and, better still, had on occasion been photographed after a successful bout.

  Morning brought a messenger, and that messenger brought a photograph, and after breakfast Mickey was dispatched early, in the hope of catching the menfolk before they left for work, to speak with Mr and Mrs Colin Chambers and their neighbours, the Fullers, to ask if this looked like the man on the beach.

  ‘And they said it might well be,’ Mickey told Henry as he devoured his delayed breakfast. ‘Mrs Fuller was certain and her friend, Mrs Chambers, also convinced. The husbands are not willing to commit, but do admit to the possibility.’

  ‘Which is less than I’d hoped, but what I’d expected. And we have to ask ourselves how many other men of that height and build are even remotely connected to this affair? So far, none.’

  ‘And we don’t know that this one is. I’d be more inclined to be impressed if they’d seen his face more clearly. But from the distance they were at it’s only going to be an impression of height and build that strikes a chord. And even then we can’t be certain their reports are accurate. Witnesses usually report those suspected of violence as being bigger and more powerful than is usual. I’d be happier if someone else had noticed an exceptionally large man wandering around on Bournemouth seafront on that Sunday morning. You’d expect him to stick out like a sore thumb and instead of that this is the only sighting. While I believe the witnesses to be perfectly genuine and to be doing their best to be of help, they are also aware that we want them to have seen this potential suspect; a man already looming perhaps too large in their imaginations for their reports to be one hundred per cent accurate.’

  ‘Which we both know no witness ever is,’ Henry agreed. He looked again at the picture of Vic Mullins. He’d won his bout and stood with one arm raised, looming over his unfortunate opponent, who now lay spark out on the canvas. The referee, himself not insignificant, allowed some sense of scale but, Henry asked himself, had he seen this man in isolation, standing on the sand with the body of a slight young woman in his arms, would he have been truly able to guess at his height or be accurate as to his build?

  ‘It was worth asking the question,’ he said, aware that he sounded a little despondent.

  ‘It’s always worth asking the question. Now, we have a train to catch,’ Mickey reminded him. ‘I don’t suppose it’s worth asking Cynthia if she can put her dislike of the man aside and arrange an appointment with this Ben Caxton fellow?’

  ‘No,’ Henry said, thinking about the conversation he’d had with Cynthia about Ben Caxton. ‘I think we might organize this one ourselves.’

  TWELVE

  Wednesday 15 January

  The full post-mortem report on Faun Moran was waiting for them when they returned to London. It confirmed that the cause of death had been a broken neck but chose not to speculate on whether this had been accidental or deliberate. There was also bruising to the skull, not enough to cause death or even unconsciousness, but which might indicate a fall and which was therefore suggestive of a struggle or an attack.

  ‘So she hit her head and perhaps broke her neck at the same time?’ Henry pondered. ‘Or she fell and hit her head and someone then broke her neck. Either is possible. The way her body was deposited on the beach indicates perhaps remorse, certainly concern. The body could easily have been concealed, buried, simply discarded and the chances are we would never have known. No, someone wants the truth to come out.’

  ‘If that’s the case, why don’t they come forward?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘That’s the question, isn’t it? Did that man on the beach kill her? Did he know who did, or does he know for certain that it was an accidental death? And what is he afraid of that is making him reluctant to speak out?’

  ‘Could have been any number of reasons. But I think we can assume he was concerned about the girl, that his association with her was more than just someone sent out to get rid of the body.’

  There had also been evidence of recent sexual activity. Rough sex, the surgeon speculated. There was bruising to thighs and vulva.

  ‘Rape?’ Mickey asked. ‘He seems reluctant to say that, but the inference is there.’

  ‘And there are other signs of violence. Broken and newly healed ribs and a still-broken wrist. Mickey, this girl has been missing since the end of June – do we believe that over that entire time she had been abused and tortured?’ The idea horrified him. It was beyond anything he had contemplated.

  ‘And why have there been no reports, no sightings, not even false sightings that have stood up to any scrutiny? No one has seen a tall, solidly built man anywhere else, in Bournemouth or along the coast. The description has gone out in the local papers, there have even been artists’ impressions produced and he is distinctive. Even allowing for unconscious exaggeration on the part of the witnesses, we know he is strong enough to have carried that poor young woman from the car, along the beach and to have stood with her as though she weighed nothing until choosing to put her down. And that only when he felt he’d attracted enough attention to himself.’

  ‘We have to hope that the injuries were not evidence of long-term mistreatment,’ Mickey said sternly, though Henry could hear that he didn’t believe a word of his own protests. ‘As to lack of witnesses, perhaps his very distinctiveness is the problem. An average man, of average height, and average build, with average eyes and hair will produce many sightings because there are so many people who fit the picture. You start asking about a man who is well over six feet, very broad in the shoulder, built like a brick outhouse, in fact, and there won’t be so many mistakes on behalf of the public. You either see a man that size and shape or you don’t.’

  Henry supposed that he had a point. But the more he thought about what Faun Moran may have suffered, the more he felt his own distress. He thought about Melissa and what might have become of her had Henry not been able to track her kidnapper down and bring her safely home. And no one had even known that Faun Moran was missing, had, as now seemed likely, been detained against her will and treated with such violence.

  He took a deep breath and told himself that he must focus on the present moment and not on what he could not now prevent.

  Arrangements had been made that the body of the unknown girl would be removed from the Moran grave that afternoon; perhaps the subsequent post-mortem would at least provide some leads.

  Mid-afternoon found them visiting the lodgings that Faun Moran had previously shared with the Cooper sisters, Fliss and Bo, or Felicity and Belinda as their parents knew them. A third girl now slept in the room that had been Faun’s, but she was absent.

  ‘She works,’ Fliss told Henry, her eyes widening slightly as though this was an unusual idea. ‘In a gallery, so it’s not like an ordinary job.’

  ‘And you and your sister don’t?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Lord, no, Daddy is loaded, so there’s no need. I expect we’ll bot
h marry in a year or two, but for now we’re free and easy.’

  Henry bristled slightly but tried to keep his emotions under control.

  ‘I say,’ Bo said, ‘it’s a bit of a rum do, isn’t it? I mean we all thought that Faun, well you know, that Faun was dead. And now she is. Again. Will they have another funeral, do you think?’

  ‘I imagine they will,’ Mickey told her. ‘I imagine everyone is very shocked,’ he suggested and Bo and Fliss exchanged a glance and then decided to look suitably so.

  Henry sighed and accepted the invitation to sit down and make himself comfortable. He decided to leave the questions to his sergeant who undoubtedly had more patience with frivolous young women than Henry was ever able to summon.

  ‘Miss Pat Moran, Faun’s sister, suggested that Faun might have been seeing someone new. Perhaps an older man. She suggested that it might have been serious.’

  Fliss shrugged. ‘She might have been, I suppose,’ she said cautiously. ‘Faun usually had someone on the go.’

  ‘I want you to understand,’ Mickey told them, ‘that your friend is now dead, that her neck was broken, that she was left on a beach to be found by strangers. And this was some months after you all believed her to have been deceased. I want you to imagine where she might have been in that time, and why she had not been in contact with any of you, not her friends or her family. Suppose for one moment that she was being prevented, that your friend was in trouble for all this time, perhaps hurt and suffering and you didn’t know and could offer her no help. Surely you would want us to find out what happened to her and point us in the direction of anyone else that might know something?’

  Fliss blinked. ‘Oh, Lordy,’ she said. ‘When you put it like that, I suppose it is a terrible thing. I mean, we had no idea that she wasn’t dead, you know? I mean, we all thought that she’d just gone out for a drive with her friend and had gone off the road. Though we did think it was very strange. I mean, Mal never drank very much, and he was such a careful driver. He was boring, we all said that – that’s why we were all so surprised. And then he’s been locked away all this time, like he’s gone crazy or something, like his family don’t want to know. Well, it makes you think, doesn’t it?’

  Henry thought that they were drifting somewhat from the original subject and Mickey clearly agreed. ‘And do you think she was seeing someone? Someone older, someone her family might not approve of?’

  ‘Well, I suppose … I suppose they might not have liked it. The thing is Faun liked to do things that were, I mean not against the law or anything, but which were a bit of fun. Which were a bit … adventurous, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘We believe she frequented the Gargoyle and other nightclubs. She was very young to be allowed on those premises.’

  ‘Well, it depends who you’re with, of course. If you’re with someone older, if you’re with the right kind of people, no one turns a hair.’

  ‘And would Faun have been with these right kind of people?’

  ‘Of course, silly. How else would she have got in?’

  ‘And do these people have names?’ Mickey’s tone was light, amused.

  The girls laughed. ‘Everybody has a name,’ Bo said.

  ‘Perhaps you could make a list for me of Faun’s particular friends. No one will be in any trouble, I promise you that. All we’re doing is looking for information, trying to understand how Faun lived in the weeks and months before she disappeared.’

  Fliss and Bo exchanged a glance once again and it seemed to Henry that something more serious passed between them this time.

  ‘Look,’ Bo said, ‘after she died, I mean after she died in the car crash, I mean after we thought she died in the car crash, they sent for her things. Her family, I mean, and of course we packed everything up in her cases, and we made it ready for collecting but while we were going through her things …’ She looked anxiously at her sister and then at Mickey. Henry was ignored. He held his peace.

  ‘While you were going through her things,’ Mickey prompted.

  ‘Well, we found some letters. Love letters. We read them and we decided that perhaps they weren’t very suitable for giving back to her family. They were, well … not exactly smutty, but I don’t think her father would have enjoyed reading them. I don’t think her family were ever intended to see them, so we didn’t send them.’

  ‘Did we do right?’ Fliss asked.

  ‘I think you probably did,’ Mickey assured her. ‘And what happened to these letters?’

  ‘We did intend to get rid of them, to burn them or something, but we never quite got around to it. You know how these things are – you think about doing something and then it slips your mind.’

  Henry twitched but sat still. Mickey leaned forward confidentially. ‘And you still have these letters?’

  ‘Yes, but should we really be giving them to police officers? They are personal, they are love letters.’

  ‘And if they might help us find out what happened to your friend, why she disappeared, where she was, if she was kept there against her will? How she died?’

  ‘I doubt they’ll tell you that, but I suppose we can give them to you. But don’t give them to her father. He wouldn’t understand at all.’

  ‘I won’t do that,’ Mickey assured her.

  Fliss went through to another room. As the door opened a cloud of perfume and powder drifted through so Henry guessed this must be one of their bedrooms. She returned with the bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon and handed them to Mickey, together with a very flirtatious smile.

  I might as well not be here, Henry thought, and was somewhat amused at the impression his sergeant seemed to have made.

  In the car heading back to Scotland Yard they began to examine the heavy cream envelopes. This was not cheap stationery, nor was it the sort of thing that Henry would have thought a young person would choose. Laid paper, watermarked though not monogrammed. The letters written in a fluent and elegant hand.

  ‘No address,’ Mickey commented, ‘but I suppose if the girl knew where they were coming from it would not be necessary. Just a date, and a single initial: R?’

  ‘Hopefully there will be some clue in the letters. There’s what, a dozen of them?’

  ‘And we have a list of friends and close associates that her family didn’t seem to know about,’ Mickey agreed. ‘She was so visible, so much part of the social scene and yet she is as hard to pin down as sea mist. It seems to me, Henry, that everybody saw her but nobody actually looked at her, if you know what I mean. What close friends did she have? I would have expected her sister or the Coopers to know that but all they seem to have known is a list of acquaintances and fellow partygoers. And it’s clear that Fliss and Bo Cooper did not mix in the same circles. Faun Moran may have shared the rent but she does not seem to have shared their lives. Everyone tells us that Faun was adventurous, or unconventional, or daring, but no one so far has managed to explain what they mean by that, unless it’s that she went to gambling clubs and chose to dance in places with less than salubrious reputations.’

  ‘And how did this other young woman fit into the story? Why has she not been reported missing?’

  ‘Most likely she has, but we simply don’t know where she came from so we have no idea where to look for those reports. What I don’t understand, Henry, is how a man cannot recognize his own daughter. True, if the face was damaged there may have been difficulties, but would you not recognize the hands, the general demeanour, that overall look that each person possesses and that makes them unique?’

  ‘We don’t even know if the father viewed the body,’ Henry realized, ‘or who made the formal identification. It’s possible that whoever did simply accepted the facts as they seemed to present themselves. Even Pat said that the body was unrecognizable, and she was genuinely fond of her sister. If she did not recognize her—’

  ‘Pat was overcome by horror,’ Mickey objected. ‘How did she explain it … that her sister was broken, damaged beyond all recogn
ition. Perhaps their father too was overcome by horror. Perhaps we can be charitable.’

  ‘I see no reason to be charitable. The man is an arrogant idiot.’

  ‘Arrogant maybe. He can’t be that much of an idiot, not if you look at his business empire. There must be brains in that head somewhere.’

  Henry scowled at his sergeant but then admitted, ‘Brains of some sort, I suppose. So, how do we proceed from here? What do we have today that we did not have yesterday?’

  ‘A list of associates and the venues where they like to be seen, even if the Cooper sisters were unaware of addresses, or workplaces, or even second names in many cases. So we can begin by looking for the names on this list, in the places they like to frequent. Assuming these places are still as fashionable as they were last year, of course. And we look for this mysterious R, we read the letters and we see what can be gleaned. And we hope that someone sees our big man with the broad shoulders who left Faun Moran’s body on the beach. We do what we always do, Henry, we follow what leads we have and we hope that luck is also on our side.’

  THIRTEEN

  Faun, December

  My only change is when he lets me go downstairs to have a bath. I have to take my chances then, scream and kick and make as much noise as I can and just hope that someone hears me and that when they hear me they come running.

  But will they?

  Even little Martha believes that I am just too crazy for words. She believes that I have had some kind of brain fever and that anything I say is therefore half lies, or at least untruths because I can no longer tell the difference. Her pity of me is so painful. She sat with me one night when things had gone too far with HIM. He had hurt me so badly and my ribs hurt so much that I could scarcely breathe. Martha believed that I had done it to myself. That I had somehow got out of my room and thrown myself down the stairs. How could she believe that her kind and caring master had been the one to do that? I could not tell her about the other things that he has done.