A Wreath for my Sister (21 page)

‘Did you see a car?'

‘No.'

‘Did you see anything?'

‘No ... No, nothing. Only the shoe. That's all I saw.'

‘Why didn't you bring it in when you'd seen the newspaper reports?'

‘It wasn't going to help you,' he said desperately. ‘It didn't have anything to tell you.'

‘No? We would have liked to be the ones to judge that for ourselves,' Joanna said before adding softly, ‘Why today, Mr Donovan?'

He looked startled. ‘What do you mean? I've come forward, haven't I? No one forced me to come.' He looked at her with a touch of bravado. ‘You didn't know I had it. You'd never have known if I hadn't come forward.'

‘No, we wouldn't have known. But Sharon Priest died a week ago today. We've had a lot of men searching everywhere for this shoe. It's been well publicized.' Again she asked the same question but this time a touch more aggressively. ‘Why now, Mr Donovan? Why have you come here today?'

It was the wife who answered. ‘Because I found him doing disgusting things with it. That's why. He only came here because of what I would think. I thought he might have killed her.' She looked at him with a fierce hatred. ‘I thought he might be the one. The girl was raped, wasn't she?'

‘Please, be quiet, Lizzie,' Donovan said. ‘Sit down.'

Lizzie Donovan gaped at her husband. She flushed. An angry light appeared in her eyes. She pressed her lips together and sat back heavily in her chair.

Joanna stared at the small, pale man. ‘And you weren't concerned about the shoe's owner?'

He blinked. ‘At first,' he said. ‘But I thought she must have got stuck and had managed to get free.' He stopped. ‘All I knew was, she wasn't up there.' He looked at her. ‘I called,' he said. And Joanna had a vivid picture of the man, holding the shoe, calling across the snowy expanse of moors.

She leaned forward. ‘You were holding the shoe?'

‘Yes.' He stared at her. ‘It reminded me of Cinderella. The glass slipper.' His eyes rested on the shoe.

The letter that had tempted Sharon to meet her killer at the Quiet Woman had promised her Prince Charming.

Joanna looked again at Andrew Donovan. ‘You knew Sharon Priest?'

He shook his head violently. ‘No. I didn't know the girl.'

‘She had a baby, supposedly by a married man, Mr Donovan.'

Lizzie Donovan was sitting on the edge of her seat, her head whipping from one to the other.

‘Were you that married man, Mr Donovan?'

‘No ...' Again he shook his head. ‘No. I never ever met her.'

Joanna glanced from the high-heeled black shoe with its diamanté buckle to Lizzie Donovan's podgy ankles spilling over their brown brogues. And in a flash she knew why the shoe had exerted such influence over Andrew Donovan.

He was looking defiantly at Joanna now. ‘I knew she couldn't possibly have walked anywhere, not in these.' Again he stretched his finger and thumb to the height of the heel. ‘And I wondered what sort of woman would wear this kind of shoe across the moors on a snowy night.'

‘Whore!' spat Lizzie Donovan.

Mike spluttered. Joanna looked at him sharply.

It was strange how the shoe sat, high heeled and elegant, in the centre of the desk, dominating the whole interview almost haughtily.

‘I just wondered ...' he said apologetically.

His eyes were cold, with tiny, pin-pointed pupils. When he looked at her Joanna felt uneasy. She watched him.

Mike leaned right across the desk. ‘Come on, Donovan,' he said softly. ‘You must have had some kind of a picture what she was like.'

Now Donovan looked rattled. He leaned back, away from Mike and blinked unhappily. ‘No, sir,' he said. ‘I didn't think.'

‘I put it to you that you did,' Mike said. ‘In fact I think you thought that the girl who wore these shoes was attractive.' He too put out a hand and touched the shoe, then stared hard at Donovan. ‘In fact you fancied her so much you raped her then stuck the wire round her neck and twisted it. Didn't you?'

Now Donovan was terrified. ‘I didn't,' he said. ‘I didn't. I promise you.'

Lizzie Donovan was looking on pityingly without saying a word. She merely sat, watching impassively.

‘Where were you on the Tuesday night that Sharon Priest was killed?' pressed Joanna.

Donovan stared at her.

‘Mr Donovan,' she said. ‘I really think you should acquire the services of a solicitor, don't you?'

The little man nodded.

‘Will I be charged?'

‘Yes. Charges relating to concealment of evidence and wasting police time,' she said. ‘And we'll be testing samples from the dead girl's body to see whether they match up with your body samples.'

Donovan looked pleadingly at Joanna, but she met his eyes with frank dislike.

Joanna took Mike outside the interview room. ‘Well?' she said. ‘What do you think? Did he do it?'

Mike frowned. ‘He could have. He was up there – on the moors at some time. He could have been the one who made the date.'

‘You think she met Donovan that night at the Quiet Woman?' She looked at him dubiously. ‘And he kept her shoe?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm just saying it's a possibility, Joanna.'

‘And he was the one who killed Stacey?'

His dark eyes were appealing to her.

‘I don't think it, somehow,' she said. ‘I don't think he's clever enough.' She stopped and frowned. ‘He doesn't fit my image of our killer. He seems – pathetic ... seedy. I can't picture him as a rapist. But we'd better get his car in,' she said. ‘He denies knowing Sharon at all – Therefore there should be nothing of her in that car. No hair ... nothing. And let's get the shoe down to the lab.'

She could not help the feeling of anti-climax.

‘In the meantime, I suppose I'd better make that visit to Randall Pelham.'

The solicitor lived in a smart, Edwardian detached house on the Buxton road. Painted black and white with a pretty verandah, it had an air of genteel elegance.

She parked her car in the drive behind a black Jaguar and knocked on the stout oak door.

Elspeth Pelham answered the door. She looked at Joanna resignedly. ‘Every time I see the police,' she said, ‘I have a feeling of deja-vu, as though Deborah only left yesterday.' The strain on her face was painful as she looked at Joanna. ‘My husband,' she said with difficulty, ‘believes she is alive, Inspector.' Her eyes looked haunted as she spoke. ‘What woman would abandon a child?'

Joanna shifted uneasily.

‘Sebastian is such a sweet little boy,' Elspeth Pelham continued, then she clutched at Joanna's arm. ‘Deborah's dead, isn't she?'

Joanna touched the woman's shoulder. ‘We think she might be,' she said.

Mrs Pelham's eyes filled with tears. ‘Do you have children, Inspector?'

Joanna shook her head.

‘Children are pain,' she said, ‘with the tiniest amount of pleasure thrown in.' She turned round then and Joanna followed her into the house.

The hall was gloomy, panelled in some dark wood. A wide mahogany staircase led up and divided left and right in front of a beautiful stained-glass window depicting two sheep with a lamb.

Randall Pelham stood in the living-room doorway staring at her. He tightened his lips, stood back and the three of them entered the room.

The newspaper was casually dropped on the sofa, its headlines glaring: ‘Police question man about Sharon killing.'

He turned to her. ‘What do you have to tell me?'

She looked at him helplessly.

‘Don't spare us,' he said. ‘Please, Inspector ... Nothing could be worse than not knowing.' He stopped. ‘If our daughter is dead we would wish to give her a decent Christian burial. You understand?'

She nodded. ‘I need to check some facts with you about the circumstances surrounding your daughter's disappearance,' she said. She paused. ‘Anything I say to you is confidential – you understand?'

They both nodded. They were sitting together, on the sofa. An elderly couple whose one daughter had disappeared. And the tragedy clung around them like a fog.

Joanna pressed on. ‘This girl – Sharon Priest. Have you ever heard her name before?'

They shook their heads.

‘Your daughter never mentioned that name?'

Again a negative.

‘The man who killed Sharon had killed another girl before – another young woman. She was from Macclesfield.'

The couple's eyes were fixed on her face.

‘That was eighteen months ago,' she said, then paused again. ‘Does the name Leanne Ferry mean anything to you?'

This brought recognition. ‘She was a so-called friend of Deborah's,' Randall Pelham said gruffly. ‘A feminist – a girl who made Deborah discontented.' Then he looked at Joanna shrewdly. ‘What's the connection, Inspector?'

‘She now lives with Sharon Priest's ex-boyfriend.'

Elspeth Pelham gave a tiny gasp. ‘Oh.'

‘These two facts make me a little uneasy about your daughter,' she said. ‘Frankly, the police originally thought Deborah had walked out on her family – both you and her son.' She stopped. ‘Obviously this puts things in a different light.'

The Pelhams were watching her as though hypnotized.

‘Is there anything you feel you want to add?'

Still they sat, clutching each other's hands.

‘Tell me about the day she disappeared.'

‘She asked a friend, Sandy Beastall,' Elspeth told the story in a weary voice, ‘to look after Sebastian. She said she was going shopping. She wanted some new clothes and some underwear. The people at the market saw her. She did buy some things. The friend was meant to be baby-minding anyway that evening, because Deborah had a date.'

Randall Pelham interrupted his wife. ‘We don't know who the date was with and we never found out. Sandy said she was very excited. The last sighting was at three o'clock at the outdoor market. She was carrying some shopping bags.'

‘Did anyone come forward to say they were supposed to be meeting Deborah that evening?'

‘The police didn't really try too hard,' Randall Pelham said. ‘Because she never went on that date, you see. The plan was that she went shopping, came home, got changed and went out. The fact that she disappeared in the middle of the day took the emphasis off the night-time date.'

Joanna nodded, then looked at Elspeth. ‘You were close to your daughter?'

She nodded. ‘I would have said so, yes,' she answered quietly. ‘Perhaps a little less so when she returned from Saudi Arabia.' She stopped. ‘Deborah seemed a little more hard-boiled after being there.'

‘And that bloody spiky-haired female didn't help either.'

Joanna looked at Randall Pelham.

‘Well – with her rights-for-women attitude and going on about men using women for their own ends. All that crap.'

The word was unexpected coming from him and Joanna smiled. ‘Mr Pelham. I had the feeling that you suspected someone of being involved in your daughter's disappearance.' Joanna paused. ‘Was it Leanne Ferry?'

He looked away. ‘I had no proof.'

‘But ...'

‘She had a lot of influence over Deborah,' he said fiercely. ‘Deborah even began to talk like her.'

‘Was there anything concrete we can go on?'

He shook his head.

Joanna was silent for a moment, digesting facts. But try as she might she couldn't see where Leanne Ferry fitted into the picture.

‘Tell me ... Do you really think Deborah is dead?' Elspeth Pelham asked again.

‘It's possible,' Joanna said cautiously.

‘By the same man?'

Joanna nodded.

‘I see.'

‘I've never understood,' Randall Pelham said slowly, ‘why since that day we never heard anything. And neither has her ex-husband. Her son is now nearly three years old and has no recollection of his mother.'

Pelham was close to breaking down. He covered his face with his hand. His wife tightened her grip on him but he stood up. ‘Where does Miss Ferry live now?'

‘Please ...'Joanna begged. ‘Leave this to the police.'

Pelham gave her a sudden, malevolent look. ‘I've done that for the last two years. Where has it got me?'

‘Nowhere,' Joanna said calmly. ‘But neither will harassing Leanne Ferry.'

Joanna left soon after that. The feeling of emptiness in the old house was painful, the couple's unhappiness tangible. She could hardly remember ever feeling more pity than she did for these two lonely, middle-aged people. And his social position and her bravery all added poignancy to the situation.

‘Great morning for cycling, Joanna,' called Stuart as he came up level with her, and she nodded back in agreement, out of breath and apprehensive. She had seen another side to Stuart. A less attractive side.

‘I'm still having trouble keeping up with you,' she panted.

But he took little notice and pedalled faster. ‘You working this weekend?'

‘Most of the time.'

He slowed down then and she caught up with him. ‘Sure you won't spend an evening with me?' he urged. ‘I know a great little restaurant.'

‘I don't think so.'

He bent back down over his handlebars. ‘Oh,' he said and quickened his pace.

She made a face, kept her head down and pedalled faster, swinging round the corner towards the hill. They were at the top before she caught him up again.

They cycled silently for half a mile before she turned to look at him. ‘I don't know much about you, do I?'

He laughed it off. ‘Not much to know. I work in the town.'

‘What as?'

They were speeding along now. ‘I trained as an engineer. As I said,' he laughed, ‘I'm a nuts and bolts man.'