A Walk With the Dead (7 page)

Paniatowski became aware of the fact that the rest of the team were watching her, and waiting for her to speak,

‘I don't want to put a jinx on the search by assuming it will end with what Superintendent Potter chooses to call a “negative result”,' she said, ‘but we have to accept the fact that Jill's been missing for over eighteen hours.' She paused to take a deep breath. ‘That means that the prospects don't look good, and if things do turn out badly, we need to be ready.'

‘I've already informed the divisional commanders that we may be drawing on them for manpower,' Beresford said.

Paniatowski nodded. ‘Good. If the worst does come to the worst, I'll want your lads to trace Jill's movements from the time she left the wedding.' She took a drag on her cigarette. ‘Kate, your job will be to go to Jill's school, and find out what you can about the parts of her life that her mother probably has no idea of. And before you ask,' she continued, turning to Crane, ‘the reason I'm sending Sergeant Meadows is because most of the information she'll gather will probably come from the girls.'

‘I don't quite follow, boss,' Crane admitted.

‘It's not your fault, but you have an effect on girls of a certain age,' Paniatowski said. ‘They quite lose their heads when they're talking to you. And don't deny it – because I've seen it happen.'

Crane grinned sheepishly. ‘I wasn't about to deny it, boss,' he admitted. ‘I'm cursed with good looks.'

‘And burdened with humility,' Paniatowski said dryly. ‘Sergeant Meadows, on the other hand, comes across to teenage girls as an older sister. Admittedly, it's a slightly
dangerous
older sister – the one they'd like to copy if only they had the nerve . . .' She paused. ‘I've got that about right, haven't I, Kate?'

‘If you say so, boss,' Meadows replied.

‘And because that's how they see her, they'll tell her things they'd never dream of telling the rest of us,' Paniatowski continued. ‘That leaves you, Jack. You can stick with me, and carry my bag.'

‘Fine,' Crane said, doing his best to hide his disappointment.

‘That's about as far as we can go for the moment,' Paniatowski said, rounding things up. ‘Any questions?'

Meadows shook her head, and Crane said, ‘It all seems clear enough.'

‘Will you two excuse us for a minute?' Beresford asked, looking first at the sergeant and then at the detective constable.

He'd posed it as a question, but both Meadows and Crane knew it was nothing of the kind, and they immediately stood up and walked over to the bar.

‘I hope you're not looking for advice on your ever-more-complicated love life, because I never discuss sex on a Sunday,' Paniatowski said, with an uneasy grin.

She knew what he was going to say, Beresford thought – and she didn't want to hear it.

‘Are you sure you want this case, Monika?' he asked, anyway.

Paniatowski's forced grin froze, and then melted completely away.

‘Firstly, we don't know yet if it
will be
a case,' she said. ‘And secondly, if it does turn out to be a case, why
wouldn't
I want it?'

‘It's less than two months since your Louisa was abducted,' Beresford said. ‘Do you remember what sort of state you were in when that happened?'

‘Of course I remember. How can you ever think I'd forget it? Now can we change the subject, please?'

‘We were in the pub in Bellingsworth village when you got the call that she'd gone missing, and—' Beresford continued steadfastly.

‘I know where we bloody were,' Paniatowski interrupted him.

‘—and when you came back to the table, you were trembling – and as white as a sheet. You tried to find your car keys in your handbag, and you couldn't even manage something as simple as that, so in the end I drove you back to Whitebridge myself.'

‘Are you enjoying dredging all this up?' Paniatowski asked. She shook her head. ‘I'm sorry, that wasn't fair.'

Beresford said nothing.

Ten seconds ticked slowly by before Paniatowski continued, ‘Yes, I was in a state. I admit that. Louisa's my only child, for God's sake! How would you have expected me to react?'

‘Exactly as you did,' Beresford said. ‘And you're not
so far
from that state now. So do you really think that you're strong enough to handle an investigation which is bound to remind you of that terrible night?'

‘I'm strong enough,' Paniatowski said.

‘I'm sure that the deputy chief constable would be more than willing to hand the investigation – if there is one – over to some other chief inspector,' Beresford told her.

‘I'm strong enough,' Paniatowski repeated, firmly.

S
unday drifted lazily on, as Sundays invariably and inevitably did. The pubs closed at two in the afternoon, the drinkers wandered home, and by half-past two, the centre of Whitebridge – and the suburbs that clung to it like dependent limpets – were almost deserted. Once inside their own houses, the Sunday drinkers tucked into their traditional Sunday lunch of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and three veg, and then settled down in front of their television sets, soon falling asleep while watching old films they'd already seen half a dozen times before.

It was only on the edges of the town – in the industrial wasteland – that there was any sign of activity. There, teams of searchers, usually led or supervised by a police officer, checked out decaying mills and rotting warehouses, dilapidated scrap yards and dubious used-car establishments.

The searchers had started the day in somewhat high spirits. They were doing something for their community – they were acting together – and they felt good about it. They knew, of course, that their search might end in tragedy, yet they could not actually bring themselves to believe that it would.

By three o'clock, the mood had changed. The searchers were tired and hungry, but more than that, they were beginning to tell themselves that they were on a pointless mission – that if Jill Harris was safe and well, they would have found her by then.

At four o'clock, when darkness was beginning to fall and the search was finally called off, they felt a mixture of relief and disappointment – and began to prepare themselves for the inevitable.

It was just after six o'clock when Elaine Hardy and Eddie James began walking – gloved hand in gloved hand – through the Corporation Park.

The winter and early spring were difficult times for young lovers, Elaine reflected as they walked. At least, they were difficult times if you had a mother like hers – one who refused to accept the fact that by the time you were seventeen you'd stopped being a girl and become a woman, with all the natural urges that went with womanhood.

She envied the young Americans she had seen in films at the Odeon. They were able to ‘make out' any time they felt like it, because they all had big flashy automobiles, with plenty of room on the ample back seat for a spot of nooky. If you were a teenager in Whitebridge, on the other hand, then all you had was a sodding push bike, and however randy you were feeling, having sex on the crossbar was just about impossible.

And so she and Eddie – who would one day be her husband, and the father of her children – were forced to practice
their
‘making out' in isolated bus shelters and on wooden park benches. And in winter, that could be bloody cold!

As they passed the bandstand, she caught her boyfriend glancing speculatively at the bushes, so she knew what was about to come next.

‘Do you fancy a quick tumble?' asked Eddie, always the romantic.

‘It's a bit chilly for that sort of thing,' Elaine said dubiously.

‘It's warmer than it was last Friday – and we did it then,' Eddie pointed out, with impeccable logic.

‘It doesn't feel warmer to me,' Elaine said. ‘Have you got a rubber Johnny on you?'

‘I don't think so,' Eddie said dubiously.

‘Well then . . .'

‘I'm joking with you,' Eddie said, grinning. ‘Of course I've got one. It's right there in my wallet. I always carry one – 'cos I never know when you'll start making your insatiable demands on me.'

‘Now, don't go pretending that it's always me who's wanting to have it,' Elaine said. ‘You're the one who keeps saying you can't have too much of a good thing.'

‘So what do you think?' asked Eddie, who was getting tired of the debate. ‘Are you up for a quick one or not?'

‘As long as it
is
a quick one,' Elaine said. She grinned, impishly. ‘But not
too
quick, or you'll leave me unsatisfied.'

‘As if I'd do that,' Eddie replied.

They looked around, to make sure no one was watching them, then quickly headed for the bushes.

Eddie stripped off his overcoat and laid it on the ground. Then he ran his hands over the lining, to make sure he hadn't placed it on any roots.

‘There you go, my princess,' he said grandly.

Elaine lay down on the coat, raised her backside slightly, and pulled down her knickers.

‘And don't be too rough with me this time,' she warned.

Eddie grinned in the darkness. ‘It'll be as smooth as silk,' he promised. ‘You'll hardly know I'm touching you.'

‘There's no need to go to extremes,' Elaine told him.

As Eddie began the foreplay, which he read about in the book his older brother had lent him, Elaine closed her eyes. She wasn't quite sure
why
she always did that at this point, except that was what they did in the films, so she supposed it was no more than standard procedure.

She felt her excitement growing, and when Eddie entered her, she groaned loudly.

‘Shush!' Eddie whispered urgently.

He was right, she thought. Make too much noise, and you were likely to attract the attention of some passer-by.

And then where would they be?

Up before the magistrate, more than likely, with her mother glaring at her from the public gallery!

‘Do me, do me,' she groaned – though quietly.

She was really into it now, and with her eyes still closed, she groped around for Eddie's hand.

The hand seemed very cold, she thought, as her fingers found his – cold, and rather lifeless.

And then she realized that it wasn't Eddie's hand she was holding, and she let out a loud scream – not caring
who
heard.

By the time Paniatowski reached the park, temporary floodlights had been set up, and now the bushes were an island of illumination, floating in the middle of a sea of darkness.

Beresford was already there, gazing down intently at the body, as if he thought that by doing that, he would somehow miraculously bring her back to life.

‘Is that the girl who you saw at the wedding reception, Monika?' the inspector asked, when he noticed that his boss had arrived.

Paniatowski looked down at the body, which was lying half hidden under one of the bushes.

The girl looked so tiny, she thought. So helpless!

‘Yes, that's Jill Harris,' she said mournfully. And then, more crisply, she added, ‘Who found her?'

‘A lad called Eddie James,' Beresford said. ‘He
claims
he was just taking a short cut through the bushes, but when he turned round to leave, I noticed there were grass and dirt stains on the back of his overcoat, so you can draw your own conclusions.'

‘There's no chance he was involved in the murder, is there?'

‘In my opinion, none at all. He's just a poor innocent soul who happened to stumble on a murder victim, and then did the responsible thing and called the police. There's nothing that he – or the girl he wasn't with – can tell us that we can't see for ourselves.'

‘Do we know the cause of death?'

‘The doctor hasn't arrived to examine her yet, but there's bruising all around the throat, so it seems more than likely that she was choked.'

Paniatowski looked at the girl again. Jill's coat was open, and under it she was wearing her prized Miss Selfridge top, just as her mother had said she would be. And it
was
a nice top, so it was hardly surprising that a young girl like her had been so proud of it. In fact, in some ways, it was
too
nice a top.

‘Do you think this is what the girl was wearing when she left home on Saturday afternoon?' asked Beresford, whose mind seemed to be running along similar lines to his boss'.

‘Yes, I'm almost certain it was,' Paniatowski replied.

‘It seems a bit posh for a Saturday afternoon stroll in the park.'

Yes, it did, especially when Jill had known her Auntie Vanessa would not be there to see it.

Paniatowski wondered if there was anything more she could have done after she'd been to Jill's room and finished interviewing her mother. And that, she recognized, was just a short step from wondering if she could have done anything to prevent the murder.

But it was pointless thinking like that, she told herself, because you can't protect everybody, all the time – however much you might want to.

She lit up a cigarette. ‘How long do you think the poor child has been dead?' she asked.

‘Well, she looks like she's coming out of rigor, so my guess would be she was killed some time on Saturday evening,' Beresford replied.

Paniatowski took a deep drag on her cigarette.

Smoking, according to the subtle messages hidden deep inside the adverts, was an almost magical process, which both soothed the body and made the world seem a slightly better place, she thought – but when you were looking down on the face of death, there was no magic to be found anywhere.

The chances were that even as she was talking to the mother – and trying to give the poor woman some hope – the girl herself had already been lying here. The chances were . . .