Mourning the Little Dead Page 4

  ‘And if we find nothing here, do we move on to the next house?’ he asked.

  Travers shuddered, ‘Don’t even think it,’ he said.

  Geoff Holmes drove off and the digging crew moved back in. Alec and Dick Travers moved outside to where they could hear themselves speak.

  ‘Anything on the reconstruction last night?’ enquired Alec.

  Travers frowned. ‘A couple of names we didn’t have before. We’ve had two calls from neighbours who reckon that the man next door is a pervert or some such. No direct connection with Sarah Clarke’s disappearance, but we’ll check it out. And a possible...to say witness would be stretching it. A woman who thinks she might have seen a man shouting at a little girl. The child was crying, but at the time the woman thought nothing of it. She thinks the child might have looked like Sarah and she thinks it might have been on the right evening.’ He nodded towards the marked police car standing a few yards away. ‘I’ve told dispatch to dump it all through to the printer and seeing as you’re here, you can follow up the witness and the suspicious neighbours.’

  ‘Can’t uniform do that? It sounds like a routine call.’

  ‘I’d rather not under the circumstances. Both are on the Radleigh Estate. I don’t need a repeat of last year.’

  Alec flinched. Radleigh was what was commonly seen as a sink estate. A dumping ground for the local authorities, it was filled with broken families living on the poverty line and unemployed youngsters who hung around the street corners with nowhere to go and nothing better to do. It was a mire of tightly packed town houses and shit holes of high-rises, half of them sitexed up and left empty because even the hopeless still had some dignity left and to move to the Radleigh was often seen as the final move. You couldn’t get any lower without climbing into the sewers.

  Last summer, there had been a rumour—only a rumour —that some newly released paedophile had been placed in one of the flats. For an estate already so drained of life that is was tinder dry, the rumour had been enough. Fifteen nights of rioting; fifteen days of community relations nightmare.

  Alec could see what Travers meant, but he didn’t figure that simply losing the uniform would fool anyone on the Radleigh.

  ‘They’ll still know exactly what I am,’ he commented, ‘and what I’m there for.’ He shrugged. ‘Our informants ready for a visit are they?’

  ‘One won’t give a damn. Viccy Elliot. Rathbone Street.’

  Alec groaned. The Elliot clan, three generations of them, were so well known there was talk of naming the custody suite in their honour.

  ‘The other doesn’t want a visit. Mrs Anonymous.’

  ‘There’s a surprise. Both name the same man, do they?’ Travers nodded. ‘Nothing on him our end. It’s probably a no show but go and wave the flag. Discreetly.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. Know anyone with a big dog I can borrow?’

  ‘Scared, Alec?’

  ‘Me? No. I just want something to guard the car. I like it with the hub caps on.’

  *

  Naomi had arranged with Henry to go and visit his mother. He collected her at ten and they drove the mile or so back to the streets where she and Helen had grown up.

  Harry said little as he drove, he seemed awkward and tense. He asked if she had heard anything more from Alec, but it was clear from his voice that he had no expectations. It was only when he stopped the car that he said more.

  ‘I didn’t sleep well,’ he told her, explaining his quietness. ‘I woke up at two and Mam was crying. I heard her through the bedroom wall. I got up and made us all tea. We sat up for the next hour or two, drinking tea and trying not to talk about it. You know, it’s only since having Patrick that I’ve really been able to understand what they went through after Helen. The thought of someone, anyone or anything taking my son away is more than I can bear. It was bad enough when he lived with his mother, but at least I could still talk to him.’ He laughed briefly. ‘God, but you should have seen the size of my phone bills. I could still go and visit him. I still knew that he was out there, living his life, playing with his friends, getting into trouble at school, doing the things kids do. But when we lost Helen...it was final, but it wasn’t final. You know what I mean.’

  She felt him looking at her and nodded her head.

  ‘She wasn’t out there, being and doing or anything like that, but she wasn’t anywhere else, either. There was no grave to visit. There was no finality. And last night, it just hit home. All these years, we’ve half expected her to walk back through the door. Somehow, we’ve still waited for her to come home and now I think we all realize that she never will.’

  *

  Alec parked directly outside the Elliot house, hoping he’d be able to keep an eye on the car. Uniformed patrols drove double-crewed on the Radleigh and he was conscious of being alone and just a tad bit exposed. Someone in the Elliot clan must have been watching from the window because the door opened before he reached it and Viccy Elliot, cigarette in hand, waved him inside, directing him through to the kitchen.

  ‘Sit down, I’ll make you a cuppa.’

  ‘Er, thanks.’

  She gave him a sideways look and then filled the kettle. A child took up station in the kitchen doorway, one finger rammed firmly up its left nostril and its gaze fixed on Alec’s face. Alec wasn’t certain what sex it was, only that it was small and mucky and still dressed in pyjamas, despite it being close on midday.

  Viccy Elliot grabbed an ashtray from the window sill and sat down opposite Alec. She glanced over at the child. ‘Go and play with yer brother,’ she commanded. ‘And git yer finger out yer nose.’

  She shrugged elaborately. ‘Kids,’ she commented.

  ‘One of yours?’

  ‘No, that’s Sandra’s youngest. Sandra’s one of mine. She’s back at college, training to be a computer something. I told her, you’ve got a good brain, my girl. You get back to school and leave the little ’uns with me. She takes her Allen to the crèche now, but Kyle and Wayne aren’t out of nappies yet, so they’ll not take them.’

  The kettle boiled and she got up to make tea. The remains of the breakfast pots still lined the sink, but the mugs she took from the cupboard looked clean enough. Viccy Elliot was a big woman with her hair pulled back from her round face and tied into a tight ponytail. She dominated the room and Alec knew from past experience that she also dominated her extended clan and a good part of the Radleigh estate.

  She placed a bright red mug on the table in front of him. A tea bag still floated in the brownish water and she dropped a teaspoon into the mix. ‘Take the bag out when the colour’s right,’ she said. ‘Drop it in the ash tray. Take sugar do you?’

  Alec helped himself to sugar. He said, ‘Word is you’re worried about one of your neighbours?’

  She shuddered elaborately and flicked the ash from her cigarette. ‘Bloody pervert.’

  ‘What makes you think that, Viccy?’

  ‘Anyone can see it. Lives on his own in Bentham House. Always creeping around, don’t speak to no one. Spends ages just staring out of his windows, looking at the kids playing in the schoolyard.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ He hadn’t expected much but had hoped there might be a little bit more. And he had to admit, had he been a lone male, living on the Radleigh, he might well also have been accused of ‘creeping around’. Nervously.

  Viccy snorted her disapproval. ‘You got kids, have you?’

  ‘No, I don’t have kids.’

  ‘Then you won’t get it, will you.’

  ‘Get what, Viccy?’

  ‘The nose for it. You get kids, you get a feeling about people. And he’s no good. I’m telling you. You’ll be going to do something?’

  ‘I’ll be talking to him, yes.’

  ‘Talk. That’s all you lot ever do.’

  Alec took a deep breath. ‘Viccy, I understand your concerns, but we none of us want a repetition of last summer, do we. It didn’t do anyone any good, least of all the Radleigh.’


  Viccy Elliot was not impressed. ‘If anyone had taken notice in the first place, there wouldn’t have been no trouble.’

  ‘There wasn’t anything to take notice of,’ Alec insisted. ‘The man you were all so set against had no criminal record. He wasn’t what you thought he was. He was just some guy who’d divorced his wife and had been re-housed here.’

  ‘And why had she divorced him? Tell me that. She came down here, you know. Said he’d interfered with their kids. Their littl’un had told her so.’

  ‘And as far as I know, there was no proof of that either. She withdrew her statement, Viccy. Admitted they’d been through a messy divorce and she wanted to get her own back. If I’d had anything to do with it she’d have been charged with wasting police time and incitement. There are still burned-out houses down the road that haven’t been set to rights yet. I can’t believe you’d ever want a repeat of that.’

  Viccy Elliot regarded him with cold grey eyes. ‘You’ve never lived anywhere like this, have you?’

  ‘No,’ Alec admitted. Childishly, he’d have loved to counter her with some story of a deprived childhood or a misspent youth, but he had none to offer. He’d had a comfortable childhood and an easy run from then on in.

  ‘Then you’ll not understand. No one out there looks out for us, so we do it for ourselves and we do it our way.’

  Alec sighed and tried another tack. ‘Why mention this man now? He’s been here six months already. If you’d had worries, why not voice them before?’

  ‘’Cause we don’t judge people the way you think we do. We just left him to it, let him be. Then he started taking interest in a young lass what lives on the landing below. Fourteen, she is, maybe looks a bit more when she’s got her face on ready to go out, but he sees her in her school clothes, often enough. He knows.’

  ‘Viccy...’ Alec hesitated. ‘Viccy, sometimes youngsters play up to older men. You’ve been mother to enough to know that.’ Viccy had four female offspring that Alec could name. Feisty girls, like their mother, and two of them at least in frequent trouble with the law. The one she had mentioned earlier, Sandra, he hadn’t known about, so maybe she was cut from different cloth.

  Viccy Elliot glared at him. ‘You think we don’t know the difference,’ she said. ‘The girl’s mam went up and told him to lay off and he just gave her a mouthful. Hangs around, he does, waiting for her to come home and then we saw him on the telly.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Viccy waved her cigarette impatiently in his direction. ‘That reconstruction thing last night. You know about that little Sarah girl at Philby. He was in the crowd, watching every move.’

  Seven

  It was certainly not a crime to be present at a reconstruction, but nonetheless it was interesting that this man, whom Viccy was so insistent had shown inappropriate interest in one young girl, should be present at the reconstruction of another’s murder.

  Alec was fairly willing to bet that the second Radleigh caller had been the girl’s mother. The girl’s name, Viccy told him, was Emma Sanders and the name meant nothing to Alec, which probably meant that the Sanders had no history, police-wise. Alec knew the Radleigh well and was familiar with most of the regulars.

  He left his car outside Viccy’s house, only half-assured by her promise to keep an eye on it, and walked the hundred or so yards to the three-storey block known as Bentham House.

  Bentham was low rise and therefore counted more desirable that many buildings on the Radleigh. It was also one of the few blocks that had provision for single residents, most dwellings on the Radleigh being designated for families only. The address he had been given was on the top landing but there was no answer when Alec rang the bell.

  ‘He’ll he at work.’

  Alec turned to the woman who had just come up the stairs, hauling several bags of shopping.

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Yes. He got a job, couple weeks ago. Warehouse on the Murry Industrial Estate.’ She lowered the bags to the floor and began to rummage for her key.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know where?’

  She glanced sideways at Alec, still rooting for her key and not really interested. ‘Hammond’s,’ she said. ‘That mail order place. He’s a picker. The Job Centre sent him.’

  She found her key and heaved the bags inside.

  ‘Thanks,’ Alec told her.

  ‘Her downstairs, is it?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Making trouble for him? Calling you lot in.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Police or social, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you, Gary’s done nothing to anyone here. It’s that girl downstairs, throwing herself at anything in trousers. Her mam’s been at it years and the girl’s no better than she should be.’

  ‘If you think he’s so innocent, how come you’re being so helpful?’ Alec wondered aloud, but the woman shot him a withering glance and took herself inside.

  *

  The possible witness who may have seen Sarah Clarke with a man on the night of her death was only ten minutes from the Radleigh but might have been a world away. Neat streets of modern houses on the outskirts of Philby town with their tiny squares of cropped green turf in front and white net curtains defending them from the outside world.

  Alec rang the bell and introduced himself to the woman who opened the door.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you’re not in uniform. The neighbours...well, you know how people talk.’

  ‘Can I come in, Mrs Peters?’ Alec asked, ‘it will only take a few minutes, I’m sure.’

  ‘Of course, of course. Would you like some tea?’

  Alec declined and followed the middle-aged woman through to the lounge. She was a small woman with greying hair that had been over-permed. Little make-up and wearing a neat, if somewhat dowdy checked dress. He sat down at one end of a large green sofa while she took one of the chairs and Alec noted, almost absently, that the green of the sofa exactly matched the regency stripes decorating the fireplace wall.

  ‘You called us, Mrs Peters. You might have seen something on the night Sarah Clarke was killed.’

  She waved her hands ineffectually as though trying to push the thoughts away. ‘That poor, poor child,’ she said. ‘Of course, it may have been nothing. But when I saw the television last night, I knew that I just had to ring. My husband said I should.’

  ‘I’m glad you did, Mrs Peters,’ Alec told her. ‘As you say, it might be nothing, but it’s better to be sure.’ This was going to be a long haul, Alec told himself, wishing that this at least had been handed over to uniform and not to him. The Viccy Elliots of this world he could deal with, but middle-class, elderly ladies who reminded him of his Aunt Beatrice always managed to throw him off balance. In their presence, he felt like a child again, a child waiting patiently to be allowed to leave the table while the adults around him talked and ignored him and gave him no chance to interrupt.

  ‘So, the little girl you saw, Mrs Peters. This was close to the fish and chip shop on Eldon Street? And what time do you think that would have been?’

  Alec left almost an hour later little wiser than when he had arrived. Joan Peters had been walking down towards the sea front having arranged to meet her sister on the promenade. She was running a little late and so walked quickly and would like as not have taken no notice of the man and what she had taken to be his little girl if they had not quite literally crossed the path in front of her.

  ‘He came barging across, holding the child by the hand and she was crying, you know, snivelling, not fully fledged crying. I remember thinking, Oh there’s someone that can’t get their own way. You know how children behave when you tell them they can’t do something, or have something?’

  Alec nodded wisely.

  ‘Well, it was like that. He had her by the hand and she was dragging her feet and snivelling and he was telling her to come on.’

  ‘Did he seem angry, Mrs Peters, or just irritated?’

  She thought about it. ‘Oh, not really angry. M
ore frustrated, I suppose. They can be so vexing, children, and I just thought it was a father and daughter having a set-to. I used to hate it when mine showed me up in the street, so I looked away, I suppose. I didn’t think the poor man would want me staring at him, but then, when I realized what night it was, I thought I’d better say something.’

  ‘And before, when you first saw the news about Sarah’s murder. You didn’t think to mention it then?’

  She looked embarrassed. ‘You see, it was a Thursday.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t see...’

  ‘I usually meet my sister on a Tuesday. It didn’t strike me until last night that the day was wrong. You see I met her this week as well and we had to change it to a Thursday—yesterday, you see—and we ran into all the fuss on the sea front and Margaret said to me “Just fancy, the last time we met on a Thursday that poor little thing was being murdered not a hundred yards up the beach!” She was exaggerating, of course, because as soon as we met we went down to the Elysee, that’s the restaurant at the other end of the promenade, so we were much further away than that, but...well, that reminded me, don’t you see?’

  Alec did see. He pressed her for a description of the child and of the man. Both were vague. The child was blonde and dressed in jeans and a pink shirt, she thought. The man, well, not very tall, but not short either and also blonde. Medium build and ordinary, though she thought she might recognize him again and agreed that she should come to look at pictures at the station.

  Alec left, feeling shell-shocked, and told her that someone would be in touch to arrange for her to look at the mug shots. And it would be worth showing her the TV footage from last night, too. See if she could pick out the man that Viccy Elliot had been so worried by. Gary Williams was his next stop.

  The industrial estate where Gary Williams worked was only a short distance away. It had been built in the last few years and, apart from a few small units, seemed mostly to consist of warehouses and distribution centres for the big mail order companies and the supermarket chains.