A Wreath for my Sister (20 page)

‘I'm there a couple of times a month.'

She nodded. ‘Days?' she asked casually.

‘Sometimes.' Haworth was being careful. ‘Occasionally Richard and I work in the evenings. We are friends,' he said again.

‘As you've said, Mr Haworth. Did you meet Sharon Priest there?'

Haworth sighed. ‘I don't even know what she looked like.'

Mike fingered the snapshot of Sharon Priest, one of the many they had removed from her house. He flicked it on to the desk. ‘Have a look at that,' he said.

Slowly Haworth leant over and looked at the photograph. He licked his lips. ‘I might – I might have seen her,' he said.

‘Take a better look,' Mike said brusquely. ‘She was a good-looking girl. Worth a second glance.'

Haworth picked up the photograph then and stared at it. ‘Yes,' he said carefully.

‘Yes what?'

‘I did see her there, I think, once or twice.'

‘Did you ever speak to her?'

Haworth looked from one to the other. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘I can't remember. I might have.'

‘Which was it?' Mike asked doggedly. ‘You don't know, you might have done, or you can't remember?'

‘I think she made us tea once,' Haworth growled.

‘I see.'

Joanna paused. ‘Are you married Mr Haworth?'

He looked up. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I am. Happily.'

‘You have children?'

Haworth stared. ‘No, but what the hell has this got to do with that poor woman's murder?' he demanded.

Joanna stared at him. ‘I don't know – yet – Mr Haworth,' she said. ‘Sharon had three children.'

Haworth looked at her. ‘What's happened to them?' he asked.

‘They've been taken into care. Their father is unfit to look after them.'

Haworth stared. His mouth was working for a few seconds before he finally spoke. ‘Then what?' he asked.

‘Their grandmother has agreed to care for October and William,' she said. ‘However the baby ...'

His face was locked on to hers.

‘The baby may well be put up for adoption,' she said, ‘in the event of there being no blood relative deemed suitable.'

Haworth licked his lips again. ‘I see,' he said quietly, and something of the urbane manner filtered back.

Mr Haworth,' Joanna said, ‘I have to ask you. Where were you on Tuesday night?'

‘I was at home,' he lied comfortably. ‘In with my wife – all night. I'm rather glad I didn't go out,' he said conversationally. ‘It was snowing, wasn't it? Rather hard.'

Joanna nodded. ‘Yes. It was – snowing rather hard. The snow in fact concealed Sharon's body for two days. She lay there out in the snow, frozen, dead.'

Haworth winced. ‘Do you mind?' he said. ‘Is this really necessary? Aren't you being rather theatrical – and tasteless?'

‘I think murder is both those things,' Joanna said quietly. She stood up. ‘Thank you very much for your help, Mr Haworth.'

He looked wary. ‘I can't really see how I've been a help.'

‘No?' Joanna gave a frank, disarming smile. ‘Of course, I'll want to speak to you again,' she said as she and Mike filed out of the room.

‘He lied,' she said when she was back in the car. ‘He bloody lied. He
was
out that night. I saw him.'

‘But no snow on the car?'

‘He was still out,' Joanna insisted. ‘He passed me. I don't get muddled over number plates, Korpanski.'

Mike grinned at her. ‘Want a sandwich?' he said and she nodded.

They ate them back at the station, washed down with Diet Coke.

‘So what next?'Joanna said.

Mike was ramming the last of his sandwich into his mouth. Eating fast became a bad habit picked up during murder investigations. One never knew how long one would be allowed to eat, or when the next meal might be, and they were usually snatched sandwiches washed down with Coke. Joanna yearned for a decent meal, and time to enjoy it.

Mike spoke with his mouth full. ‘I wondered if we should go round and see Deborah Pelham's family,' he said. ‘I know we spoke to them before, but there might be something.'

‘Korpanski,' she said. ‘It has to be better than sitting here reading these statements.'

Right on cue the telephone rang and Mike picked it up. ‘OK ... I'll come and have a look.'

Joanna was only half listening. The name of Deborah Pelham had stimulated her. Her mind was busy as Mike left the room. And now the name began to reach her, wires crossing and uncrossing before finally she made the connection.

The name had been vaguely familiar all the way through, running like a silver thread.

Leanne Ferry.

Now living with Paul Agnew, Sharon Priest's ex live-in lover.

She sat still for a long while. And that was how Mike found her when he walked in and put something down on her desk. ‘Take a look at this,' he said triumphantly.

She stared at the shoe almost superstitiously before touching it. Then she looked up at Mike. ‘You're sure it's the one?'

He nodded.

‘Where did it come from?'

He sat down with a puzzled look. ‘It was brought in by a man called Andrew Donovan. He says he's a stocking salesman. His story is that he found it on the moors on the Wednesday morning after Sharon was killed. And guess what?' Mike grinned. ‘He wants to make a statement.'

She looked at him shrewdly. ‘Why now, Mike, a whole week later?'

‘That's what I wondered.'

‘He's outside?'

‘Biting his fingernails. Accompanied by a dragon of a wife.'

She glanced at the shoe. ‘Doesn't exactly look new any more, does it?' She studied the stains. ‘We'd better send this for forensics,' she said, then, ‘What's he been up to?'

Mike grinned. ‘Come on, Joanna,' he said. ‘Don't be naive. He's been a dirty old man with it.'

She flushed. ‘OK,' she said. ‘Bring him in in a minute. I want to have a word with you first.' And she related her thoughts to him.

‘And this Leanne's living with Agnew?' he asked.

Joanna nodded.

Mike's eyebrows shot up. ‘What a beggar of a little case, Jo,' he said.

‘I'll call round to Pelham's home this evening,' she said. ‘Just ask him a few questions ... see if anything was left out of his original statements.' She met his eyes. ‘But I admit I'm worried. We know about two – Sharon and Stacey. What if there are more that we just don't know about?'

She sat back in her chair. ‘Do you know how many missing women there have been in this area in the last three years?'

Mike shrugged. ‘Sixty?' he guessed.

‘One hundred and eighty,' she said. ‘About sixty a year – young women who have disappeared and never turned up again.'

She paused. ‘Now you know, Mike, most of these leave after family arguments and they've simply filtered through to big cities ... London, Manchester ... some of them abroad. Most of the women I'm sure are still alive. But they're a vulnerable group. Vulnerable and mobile, hard to trace. And if anything had happened to even three a year, who would know? We wouldn't, and neither would their families. So we don't know what we've got on our hands. A man who's killed twice – or more? And if more, how many more?'

He shifted uneasily and she spoke again. ‘Exactly. So we'd better get our fingers out and find who's responsible.'

She jerked her thumb towards the door. ‘What about him, Mike?'

He made a face, shook his head. ‘Fits in some ways,' he said. ‘A bit pathetic – dominated. But no, I don't think so, somehow.'

‘Why not?' She looked curiously at him.

He took a deep breath. ‘I can't see Sharon Priest even being tempted by a guy like that. She wouldn't have gone off with him. She would have gone home.'

Joanna nodded. She moved to the window and stared out. Perhaps it had been bad planning to extend the Police station in such a way that her own office window looked on to nothing but a painted brick wall. It was a little too symbolic. But they weren't meeting a brick wall in this case. It was more a case of catacombs, long dark tunnels ... too many of them. And only one would eventually lead to the man who had met Sharon that night at the Quiet Woman.

She gave a heartfelt sigh before turning back to Mike. ‘We'll use the large interview room,' she said. ‘Did you say his wife is with him?'

‘Yes.'

‘Does he want a solicitor?'

‘He says not. His wife is the only person he wants to witness what he has to say.'

She nodded and together she and Mike walked along the corridor to the interview room.

She looked curiously at the short, balding man with a meek air, dressed in a cheap grey suit and pink tie, and at the square, determined character dressed in ugly woollen clothes who was his wife.

‘Mr Donovan?' she asked, placing the shoe on the desk.

The man nodded. It was only then that she realized that desperation had made this man come here today. He was trembling and pale. She sat down opposite him and watched him sweat.

‘Are you the person in charge of this case?' His voice squeaked with nervousness. She met his eyes and he flushed. ‘Can I speak to a man officer?'

She leaned forward. ‘No, Mr Donovan,' she said. ‘No, you can't. I am in the middle of a murder investigation. A young woman's body was found raped and garrotted in the snow a week ago.' She slammed the shoe down on the desk. ‘I think this was her shoe. I want to know how you acquired it. And I also want to know why you hung on to it when it is evidence.'

Donovan licked dry lips.

‘Pictures of this shoe have appeared in all the major papers.' She watched him squirm. ‘You take a paper?'

The hatchet-faced woman spoke, smoothing her billowing skirt towards her ankles. ‘We do,' she said. ‘He saw it.'

There was no empathy in her voice. She would not save his head from rolling.

Joanna paused, then nodded to Mike. ‘Right,' she said. She flicked on the tape recorder.

‘Mr Andrew Donovan, you are being questioned in connection with the rape and murder of Sharon Priest on the twenty-eighth of September nineteen ninety-six. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you may later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.' She gave Donovan a hard look. ‘Understand?'

‘Yes.'

‘I am Detective Inspector Piercy. Also present is Detective Sergeant Korpanski. You wish to make a statement?'

Donovan looked around like a mouse when the trap snaps. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I do.'

‘You understand you have the right to have a solicitor present?'

Again he nodded. ‘I don't want one. I just want my wife to hear everything I've got to say. The whole bloody lot,' he said desperately.

And that was what made Joanna suddenly turn her interest even more intensely on the man. Was he the one? She gave Mike a quick glance and saw he too was startled. Was this case about to be cracked by a confession from a quiet, seedy little man with cheap, flashy clothes and an over-dominant wife?

Mrs Donovan stood over her husband. ‘Get on with it, Andrew,' she said, giving Joanna an angry glance. ‘It seems my husband,' she said through clenched teeth, ‘enjoys masturbating with a tart's shoe.'

‘Be quiet, Mrs Donovan,' Joanna reacted angrily. ‘Your husband is the one we want the statement from, please, not you.'

The woman folded her arms and glared at Joanna from her chair in the corner.

Joanna turned her attention to the man, who was now fingering his collar as though he was about to choke.

‘Where did you get the shoe from?' she asked.

He blinked. ‘Last week,' he said timidly. ‘It was a Wednesday.' He stopped and swallowed and Joanna considered offering him a glass of water. But she hardened her heart. Let him wait.

‘It was the morning after the heavy snow,' he said. ‘I had to cross the moors to Buxton. I had a meeting there.'

‘Go on.'

Already she knew she was to be disappointed. This was to be no confession to major crimes but a sordid little story, of tacky habits and sexual perversion.

‘At the top – near the farm – I got stuck in a drift.' He hesitated and risked a quick glance over his shoulder at his wife. ‘I always take a shovel,' he said.

Mike couldn't risk a quick dig. ‘Very wise, Mr Donovan,' he said.

‘I was digging myself out, and I saw something in the snow.' Again he paused. ‘Do you think I could have a drink of water?'

‘In a minute,' Joanna said brusquely.

‘I think the snowplough must have chucked it up,' he said. ‘You know – it was sort of sticking half in the bank.'

‘And?'

Donovan winced. ‘I thought it was pretty.'

Behind him his wife gave a snort.

‘I sort of ... I put it in my car, took it home.'

‘Why?'

He looked around the room and found Mike's eyes – impassive. ‘It reminded me of ... pretty girls,' he said and stared at the floor.

‘I see.' Joanna moved the shoe towards him. Both were aware of the stains.

She met his eyes. ‘Did you know,' Joanna asked quietly, ‘that this shoe belonged to a girl who had been raped? Raped and then a wire cable pulled tight around her neck?'

Donovan licked his lips and nodded. ‘Yes.'

‘Did you see any sign of the girl?'

Donovan leaned across the interview table. ‘I didn't see anything,' he said desperately. ‘I was in a hurry. I was worried about getting through to Buxton.'

All four of them looked back at the shoe.

‘Didn't you wonder at the time, Mr Donovan, how it had got there?'

‘I thought her car must have got stuck – broken down.'