Mourning the Little Dead Read online

  Sarah had wanted chips. She’d gone with her older brother to the corner, a few hundred yards from where they lived. Bored with waiting in the queue, Sarah had gone to stand in the doorway and the last thing anyone remembered was her brother telling her off for swinging on the door. He’d turned to put salt on the chips, turned back...and Sarah was gone.

  Her body had been found on the beach a couple of hours later, behind a breakwater and, despite it being a summer evening in a busy little resort, no one had seen a thing.

  Alec glanced back towards the sea wall. A uniformed officer had been positioned a few yards back from the promenade rail. Alec stood close to the spot where the body had been found.

  ‘See what I mean,’ Dick Travers commented. ‘You can’t see him, he can’t see you. The beach drops down towards the sea. Unless you stood right by the rail, you’d be effectively blind.’

  Alec nodded. Travers had complained about this a number of times but this was the first time Alec had been here, to the murder scene, and seen the problem for himself. ‘OK, so, half dark and well out of the way, no one would see the murder being done. Still doesn’t explain why no one saw the kid being snatched. There were three people in the chip shop, not including the counter staff and the brother. God knows how many on the streets who should have seen a little girl being dragged away...It has to have been someone she knew. Someone with local knowledge too, bringing her here. You move fifty yards either direction up the beach and you’re visible from the promenade.’

  Travers nodded. There were frown lines etched between his eyes and he didn’t look as though he’d known what sleep meant in a long time.

  ‘We figured that lot out the first day,’ he said dryly. ‘We’ve had sweet FA since then.’ He turned slowly, studying a scene he knew so well he could have navigated it with his eyes closed. ‘How’s this thing with Helen Jones?’ he asked. ‘Anything yet?’

  Alec shook his head. ‘I went out to Lansdowne Road again this morning. Nothing new, just a big hole where the ground floor used to be.’

  ‘How’s Naomi taking it?’

  ‘Well enough. I saw her yesterday, I think she’s been waiting for this a long time, but it’s a shock all the same. Especially the way the news broke.’

  ‘Press still not up to speed on the details, I take it?’

  ‘Not yet, but it’ll come out. Deathbed confessions make good headlines.’

  Dick Travers snorted. The sound might almost have been a laugh. Then he stiffened. ‘Didn’t think she’d be here yet.’

  ‘Who?’ Alec turned. A woman stood close to the next breakwater. She wore a summer dress in a blue print fabric and a grey cardigan pulled tightly across her chest. Her hands tugged at it as though it were a shield, protecting her from the world.

  ‘Mrs Clarke,’ Alec guessed.

  ‘Yeah. She’s haunted the place.’

  ‘You surprised?’

  Travers shook his head. ‘The first few days she spent on the promenade with a picture of Sarah. Just running up and down, shoving it in people’s faces and asking if they’d seen her little girl. The doc sedated her, but she just slept for a while and then she was out again.’ He shook his head again. ‘How do you tell her to stop doing a thing like that?’

  ‘And Mr Clarke?’

  ‘Mr Clarke shouted a whole lot and then made friends with the whisky bottle. Last time I saw him...he looked straight at me but there was no one there, behind the eyes.’ Travers gestured emptily with his hands. ‘You know the way it is.’

  Alec nodded. They started walking towards the breakwater and the woman standing there. She waited for them, standing very still but her eyes never for a moment seeming to rest on anything. Her gaze darted this way and that as though she were afraid of what she might see.

  ‘Hello, Maggie,’ Travers said.

  ‘I came to watch.’

  ‘You think that’s a good idea?’

  She nodded violently. ‘I have to see,’ she said. ‘If someone remembers anything. I have to see.’

  ‘Ok, let’s go on up,’ Dick Travers said, nodding towards the steps that led back on to the promenade. He took her arm and together they walked back up the beach, Alec slowly bringing up the rear.

  Five

  Naomi had been out for most of the day. She worked twice a week at an advice centre in the centre of town, using her experience in the police force to give basic legal advice. What she didn’t know, others at the centre usually did, and though it often frustrated her that she could not access this information herself by looking it up or searching the Internet, she still felt useful. For someone like Naomi who had always needed to feel useful, the advice centre was a valued outlet. She was seriously thinking of taking a counselling course and setting up a practice of her own.

  People who came to the centre, often desperate, always anxious, were sometimes a little fazed by finding themselves talking to a blind woman. Some couldn’t get over it and Naomi had learned to sideline these clients and pass them on to someone else very quickly. At first, she had let her annoyance show. Now, she shrugged her shoulders and got on with the next problem.

  Other people actually found themselves more comfortable with someone who could not see their face while they bared their souls and Naomi was often genuinely upset by the depth of despair to which some of them had sunk. Today, a woman had come wanting advice on a debt problem; what had seemed a relatively simple threat of court action from a credit company. She had broken down, delivered her whole life history—warring partner, ungrateful kids and a miserable childhood, and Naomi felt both physically and emotionally exhausted after hearing her troubles and trying to offer advice.

  Naomi had taken a taxi home. Napoleon loved travelling by car with his nose to the cracked open window and his ears flapping in the breeze. Naomi had built a relationship with a small family-run firm not far from her home. Her usual driver was George Mallard and they did their best to make sure he collected her on her advice-centre days.

  George pulled up close to the kerb and helped Naomi from the car.

  ‘Naomi?’

  The voice was vaguely familiar but Naomi could not place it. She felt Napoleon lift his head to look curiously in the man’s direction.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the voice said. ‘I should have phoned or something.’ He laughed awkwardly. ‘I’m not usually so impulsive, you know. Oh, Lord, what a mess I’m making.’

  But Naomi had placed him now. It was his manner that gave him away, and that shy, awkward laugh. ‘Harry? Harry Jones?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve come back, you know, because of Helen. When I heard, I knew I should come, couldn’t let Mam face it all alone. Not again.’ He paused. ‘I heard...about what happened to you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I. But it’s OK.’ She reached out to pet the dog, stroking his silky ears. ‘This is Napoleon,’ she told Harry. ‘Best friend anyone could ever have.’

  *

  ‘I went out there today,’ Harry Jones told her. ‘To Lansdowne Road, you know...’

  ‘Where they’re digging for Helen.’

  ‘Yes. The press...journalists, television cameras. They were all at the end of the road. I stood and watched for a time. I wanted to walk up the hill and knock on the front door and say, “Look, I think you might have my sister in there. I want to see where that bastard buried her!” But I didn’t. I didn’t do a damned thing. I just walked away and went back home. Our old home, I mean.’

  ‘They will tell you, as soon as they find anything, Harry. And I’m sure, if you or your mother really wanted to view the scene, the police could make some arrangement. Some relatives...some relatives have to...to see where...It helps to give them some kind of closure.’

  ‘Is that the official language, Naomi? Closure?’

  She smiled. ‘I guess so.’ She was wondering what he looked like now. In her memory he was a boy in his late teens. Sandy-haired, where Helen had been light-blonde. Freckled and pale-faced. Always tall for his ag
e, he tended to stoop, to stand awkwardly as though his legs and arms had grown so fast that the length of them had taken him by surprise.

  The man sitting opposite her smiled back, forgetting that she couldn’t see. His hair was no longer sandy, but was now a steely grey and the freckles had faded or in places merged into awkward spots of darker pigment. He had lines around his eyes and crossing his forehead. They had been there since the year he had lost Helen.

  ‘Great dog,’ he said. ‘You’ve had him long?’

  ‘About eight months and yes, he is great. What have you been doing all this time? Your mum said you were training to be an accountant. I kept in touch for a while, then, we kind of drifted apart. I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘She was sorry, too. I became an accountant. I got married.’

  ‘You’re married?’

  ‘Divorced. She liked my boss more than she liked me. We have a son and he lives with me now. He didn’t like my boss and when he got old enough to speak his mind I think it was more comfortable for everyone for him to move back to England.’

  ‘They live abroad?’

  ‘Florida. They moved to Florida after the divorce. Patrick used to come to me for the holidays. Anyway, I found another job, or rather, same job in a different company and there you have it really. The past two decades in a nutshell.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘How old is Patrick?’

  ‘Fifteen. He’s fifteen. Into computers, skateboards, desperate for a dog,’ he added. He paused awkwardly and then said, ‘He’d love to meet Napoleon. And you. I mean, if you’d like. I know Mam would love to see you, too.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ she said. A little surprised to find that she really meant it. ‘Yeah, I really would.’

  There was a long silence. Naomi could feel all the things he had really come here to say fighting their way out.

  ‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ she said softly. ‘Or, not much anyway.’

  ‘Not much will do.’

  Naomi bit her lip. ‘It can go no further,’ she told him. ‘I mean, it’ll all come out in time, but right now, this is confidential.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me that. I know.’

  ‘I have a friend in the force. He tells me that a woman came into the front office. Her father had died and left a confession behind.’

  ‘I read in the papers, about a confession. I thought...’

  ‘That the police had finally done their job?’

  ‘Something like that. I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t tell us who...I mean, if they’d arrested someone. Do you know who?’

  Naomi shook her head.

  ‘Meaning, you can’t tell me?’ He sounded disappointed.

  ‘Meaning I don’t know. Really, I don’t know. They’re not releasing the name and giving out very few details. This woman came in with the confession. It had been left with her dad’s solicitor after he died. She took it to the police. Harry, I don’t even know if the man confessed or if he’d been keeping it for someone else. Protecting someone. I know they’ve reopened the old files which could mean it implicated a suspect from back then. It could equally well just mean they’re being thorough.’

  ‘You know, day after day we’d wait for that knock on the door. First of all, it was the waiting. Would they find her, would she be all right? Then it was how would they find her? How did she die? You know, your mind goes through all the possible scenarios. Was she scared, in pain? Was it quick or did he—’

  ‘I know.’ She said it quickly. She couldn’t bear for him to say the rest.

  ‘Then. Have they caught him? Who was he? You know, I used to go out walking the streets, looking at people. I used to look into their faces and think, Is it you? Did you kill my sister? Do you know who killed her?’ He shook his head. ‘It felt like I was losing my mind.’

  ‘I used to see her,’ Naomi said quietly. ‘When I came round to your house, she’d be there. Sitting in front of the television, running down the stairs. Sitting on the old swing in the back yard. In the end, I just couldn’t face it, seeing her.’

  ‘So you stopped coming round?’

  ‘Yeah. I guess so. Your mam was so proud when I was accepted into the police force. You know, she came to my passing out parade.’

  ‘I know. She sent me a picture.’ His voice had a smile in it. ‘You looked so serious. I mean, not a crack of a smile. We were all proud of you, Nomi. And I know Mam thought, you know, that you were doing it for Helen.’

  ‘And now this.’

  ‘And now this,’ Harry agreed. ‘Back to waiting for the knock on the door.’

  Six

  Naomi had come home after her probation and found herself serving alongside the man who had meant so much to her in her childhood.

  ‘I’m so proud of you, Nomi.’

  He had stolen a moment privately, just as she was about to go off duty. She grinned at him, felt the slight flush rising to her cheeks at this, Joe Jackson’s praise.

  ‘It’s good to be back,’ she said. ‘When I applied for the posting, I didn’t hold out much hope really. Thought I might be stuck in London for the duration. And then, I was scared you might not be here still and I wanted you to know. Wanted you to see me...’

  She was waffling. Gushing, as her grandma would say. Joe had slipped from her life these past years, but never from her mind. She gathered that her parents had slipped a quiet word to him about overdependency—God, but she had resented their interference—because Joe’s calls to her had become less frequent and his replies to her own calls and letters briefer and more distant.

  But now, she told herself, it was all going to be different. She was...well, if not his equal, at least his colleague. And she understood, she really did, that he could not be seen to show any favouritism...any extra concern. But Naomi knew, and now he had confirmed it, that she was special to him.

  She grinned at him again; not that she had really stopped. ‘It’s good seeing you again, sir,’ Naomi said.

  *

  It was mid morning on Lansdowne Road and Geoff Holmes, resident at number 43, had come back to collect some of the family’s possessions. His arrival had caused a flurry of interest among the waiting journalists, who did not recognize either the car or its occupant, Geoff and his family having been long gone before their arrival.

  ‘Mr Holmes?’ DCI Travers reached out to shake the man’s hand. ‘We spoke on the phone. I really am sorry about all this.’

  He led the resident inside. The hall carpet had been covered by tarpaulin and hoards and the furniture from the living room had been stacked in the kitchen at the rear of the house. No one had quite worked out what they were going to do with it should the excavations extend to there.

  Geoff Holmes stared through the partly open door. What had been floor was now a gaping hole surrounded by smashed concrete.

  ‘We’ll make good,’ Dick Travers tried to reassure him. ‘But I’m sorry, Mr Holmes, this will have to be your last trip...you understand that this is a crime scene now.’

  ‘I understand that this was our home.’

  DCI Travers decided it was best if he didn’t comment.

  ‘She’ll never come back here, you know. My wife, I mean. I don’t think any of us could, not knowing...’

  ‘We may not find anything. There may be nothing to find.’

  ‘But you’ll still have been here. We’ll still know that you took the place apart, looking. That you lot touched our stuff, tramped through our home, ripped the place apart. It’s like...like...’ He gave up and turned towards the stairs. ‘Everything I want to get is up there. I hope I don’t need an escort?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ll leave you in peace to get on, Mr Holmes. Just give me a shout when you’re ready to leave. You understand I have to check all visitors in and out.’

  ‘Visitors!’ Geoff Holmes glared at him, then muttered something under his breath and stomped away up the stairs. Travers could hear him moving around, opening drawers, slamming cupboard
doors. He sighed, knowing that nothing he could say or do would make it better.

  A car pulling up outside attracted his attention and a moment later he was greeting Alec Friedman.

  ‘Thought you were in court this morning?’

  ‘A witness failed to attend. We’ve been dismissed while they chase it up.’

  ‘Mr Holmes has come to collect some stuff. I’ve told him, anything else he’ll have to send for. If it’d been up to me he wouldn’t have been let on site, but Phillips had already cleared it.’

  Alec shrugged. ‘Got to keep the public happy, I suppose.’ These days Phillips seemed more concerned with public relations than with police work. ‘Not that there’s anything to see,’ he added.

  ‘Except the bloody great hole in the living-room floor. Holmes reckons they’ll not come back here, even if we find nothing.’

  ‘I can understand that, I suppose,’ Alec said. ‘Naomi called me last night. She’d had a visit from Henry Jones. He wanted to know if she had any more on this that we were telling.’

  Travers shook his head. ‘Wish there was more to tell,’ he commented.

  ‘Like the name on the confession?’

  Travers laughed. ‘Nice try, Alec.’

  ‘It’s got to come out some time.’

  ‘But not yet. When...if, we find Helen, and personally I don’t hold out much hope on that, it will be time to release names. Until then, no name, no pack drill. My guess is that we’re here on a very expensive wild goose chase. If that’s the case, then there’s no sense digging the dirt if there’s no dirt to dig.’

  ‘And if we find Helen?’

  ‘Then we cross that bridge, don’t we?’ He shrugged and the two men fell silent as Geoff Holmes came down the stairs, laden down with bags.

  ‘I’ll get someone to give you a hand with those,’ Travers told him, ‘and I’ll have officers keep the press pack at bay while you go through.’ He gestured to the uniformed officer standing close to the door. The PC took several of the bags and Geoff Holmes nodded what might have been thanks. Alec got the feeling that the man simply could not trust himself to speak. He watched him go.