“We don’t’ know. We found that photograph in Mary’s wardrobe,” he told her. “In a shoebox, along with some others. If you scroll, you’ll see them.”
Colleen touched the screen. “I recognise this area,” she said, holding up the landscape shots. “This is a couple of miles from our house. But I don’t recognise the woman.” She scrolled back to the image of the woman by the river and frowned at it. “There’s something about this photo, though. Something seems familiar.”
“Could you have met the woman, and not remember?” Tony asked. “You were quite young at the time.”
“No, it isn’t that. It’s…something else.” She looked at the picture for a couple of seconds before shaking her head and giving the phone back to Tony. “No, I don’t know. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said, feeling his optimism slipping away. “Totally understandable.”
“Sorry I can’t remember. I wish I could be more help.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, getting up. He was just going to have to find out who the unknown woman was by other means, although how he was going to do that with Battle on his case, he had no idea.
“Thanks, Colleen,” Dani said, also getting up. “We’ll let you know if we find any more information about your sister.”
“Wait!” Colleen said. “I know what it is. It’s the dress! Let me see the picture again.”
Tony gave her the phone. She looked at it and nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, it’s the dress. Mary made that dress. She was a tomboy, but she was interested in fashion, and dressmaking. She had a dressmaker’s mannequin, and I remember her making that summer dress on it.”
Tony felt his optimism returning. He’d seen the mannequin in Mary’s room, and this piece of information, scant as it was, might lead them to the unknown woman in the photograph.
“So, she made the dress for this woman?” he asked.
Colleen closed her eyes and put her fist against her forehead, trying to remember. “She was making the dress for a competition. I remember that. I teased her that she was making a summer dress in wintertime, and there was no way she was going to win, doing that. She had a Saturday job at a shop that sold custom dresses. The owner taught Mary sewing and stuff, and I’m sure it was her who got Mary to enter the competition.”
“This shop,” Dani said. “Do you know where it is?”
“It’s at Ashford-in-the Water. It’s called Peak Dresses. My dad used to drop Mary off and pick her up, and sometimes, I went in the car with him.”
“Did you ever see the owner of the shop? Is she the woman in the photograph?”
Colleen shook her head. “Mrs MacDonald was a lot older than that. Well, she seemed older when I was just a kid, but I suppose she was probably in her thirties, then.”
“Thanks, Colleen, you’ve been a great help,” Tony said. “I’ll keep in touch.” He opened the front door and went out into the cold, followed by Dani.
As they walked back along the main road towards the Rutland Arms Hotel where their cars were parked, Tony said, “Fancy a quick trip to Ashford-in-the-Water?”
“You’re convinced the woman in that photograph has something to do with Marys’ disappearance, aren’t you?”
“Here’s what we know, Dani. Mary got into a Land Rover with someone she said she knew, but who her sister—with whom she was close—didn’t recognise. The photos of the woman in the dress were hidden in Mary’s wardrobe. That speaks to a secret life. This woman…” He held up his phone “…was part of that secret life. So was the man in the Land Rover. That means they could be connected to each other. If we find the woman in the photos, she could lead us to the man in the Land Rover.”
“It’s a long shot.”
“Yes, I know that. But I don’t see any harm in taking a short drive to Ashford, do you?”
She thought about it for a second, and then said, “I suppose not.”
“Good.” Despite the bitter cold chilling him through his coat, he smiled to himself. They were getting closer. He could feel it in his bones.
Chapter 17
Tony followed Dani’s Land Rover into the car park of the Bull’s Head pub at Ashford-in-the-Water, which had turned out to be only a five-minute drive from Bakewell. As he climbed out of his Mini, his senses were assailed by the smell of food drifting from the establishment.
Despite having had a full English earlier, he felt a sudden craving for a burger and chips and considered sounding out the DI’s opinion on grabbing an early lunch after they’d spoken to Mrs MacDonald at the dress shop.
“That’s the shop, over there,” Dani said, pointing at a quaint stone building with a bay window displaying wedding dresses on stone grey plastic mannequins that would never walk down the aisle. A sign above the door read Peak Dresses, in flowery green script over a white background.
They crossed the road and went into the shop. As they pushed the door open, a bell tinkled cheerily overhead.
Peak Dresses could not be described as spacious, by any means. The small room was crammed with dresses—mostly white and cream-coloured bridal gowns—on racks that occupied every available inch of space.
Two small speakers attached on the walls near the low ceiling piped out some sort of instrumental love ballad that was probably supposed to sound like it was being played on pan pipes and a nylon-strung guitar, but which Tony guessed was all computerised and played on a keyboard.
A cloying, floral scent hung in the air, making the psychologist long for the smell of food coming from the Bull’s Head.
Behind a glass counter which held a display of tiaras, a young woman with long blonde hair looked up at them and smiled. There was no way this was the Mrs MacDonald Colleen had referred to. This woman couldn’t have been in her thirties twenty-two years ago; she probably hadn’t even been born then.
“Hello, can I help?” she asked.
“We’re looking for Mrs MacDonald,” Dani said.
“Well, I’m Miss MacDonald. What can I do for you?”
“We’re looking for an older woman,” Tony said.
Dani shot him a glare, but he had no idea why.
The young woman frowned but recovered her composure instantly. “Oh, you must mean my mum.” Turning to an open doorway behind her, she said, “Mum, there’s someone here to see you.” Turning back to Dani and Tony, she smiled again, and said, “She’ll be out in a minute. Feel free to browse the dresses while you wait. Is there something particular you had in mind?”
“Umm, we’re here on business, actually,” Dani said. “Police business.” She showed the young woman her warrant card.
This time, the woman’s face dropped, and the smile didn’t return. “Oh, I see. Mum, the police are here.”
“All right, all right,” said a dark-haired matronly woman as she stepped through the doorway. She was a heavy-set woman, dressed in a knitted cardigan over a white blouse and dark skirt. Her features took on the smile that her daughter was missing as she turned to Dani and Tony. “I’m Moira MacDonald, the owner. How can I help you?”
“DI Danica Summers and Doctor Tony Sheridan from Murder Force,” Dani said, showing her warrant card again. “We’d like to ask you some questions, if we may.”
Mrs MacDonald’s face became quizzical. “What is it regarding?”
“We’d like to ask you about Mary Harwood. I believe she used to work here.”
The shop owner’s eyes widened in surprise. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long while. Yes, she worked here. You’d better come into the back. Shona, let them through.” She disappeared back through the doorway.
Shona pulled up part of the counter, allowing Dani and Tony access to the rear part of the building. “Just through there,” she said, nodding at the doorway.
Tony followed Dani into the back room, which was almost as cramped as the shop itself. Most of the space was taken up by an old, scarred wooden table, upon which sat a laptop, printer, and piles of papers that were seemingly arranged in
to some sort of order that Tony would best be described as “organised chaos.”
There were more dresses in here, hanging from metal rails that were fixed to the walls. A small kitchenette area sat on the far side of the room, with a kettle, a large box of tea bags, a small jar of coffee, and a selection of mugs. Behind the mugs sat a biscuit tin.
Two large filing cabinets dominated one wall, and Tony got the impression that despite the laptop on the table, most of Peak Dress’s records were stored the good old-fashioned way.
An archway revealed a set of stairs that led to the rest of the building, which Tony assumed was where the shop owner lived.
“Most of our business is online these days,” Mrs MacDonald explained. “I’m just sorting through the orders and invoices. Now, you said you wanted to ask me about Mary Harwood. She used to work here, but it was a long time ago. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, the poor dear drowned when she was just a child. A terrible tragedy.”
“Yes, it was,” Dani agreed.
“Please, take a seat.” The shop owner cleared some papers away so Dani and Tony could sit at the table.
“We understand you were teaching Mary how to sew,” Tony said as he sat down.
Mrs MacDonald smiled. “Yes, that’s right. She was a quick learner, and she had a real eye for design. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was taken from us at such a young age, I’m sure she’d have grown up to be a designer.”
“She entered a competition, didn’t she?” Tony asked.
“She did indeed. One of the magazines ran a competition for young dress designers and Mary was keen to have a go. I think she designed a summer dress.”
Tony took out his phone and flicked to the photo of the woman by the river. “Mrs MacDonald, do you recognise this photo?”
She looked at it for a moment and her brows met as she seemed to be trying to remember something. “Yes, that’s the dress Mary designed. The competition rules said that the entries had to include photographs of a model wearing the dress, so I let Mary use my Polaroid camera. Just a minute.” She got up from the table and went through the archway.
The stairs creaked as she went up them to the residential part of the house.
“What’s she doing?” Dani whispered to Tony.
He shrugged. “Maybe she’s making a run for it.”
The DI shook her head and smiled.
Five minutes later, the creaking on the stairs resumed and Mrs MacDonald appeared through the archway. “This is what I was looking for. I knew it was here somewhere. I never throw anything away, you know.”
She placed a manilla envelope on the table. It was dusty and faded with age. On the front of the envelope, also faded, an address had been written in neat black capital letters, probably with a felt tip. Tony saw the words Dressmaking & Sewing Magazine, and London before Mrs MacDonald turned the envelope over and shook its contents out onto the table.
“This was Mary’s entry,” she said, a hint of sadness tinging her voice. “After she…you know…there was no point in posting it, but I didn’t have the heart to throw it away. So, it’s been gathering dust in a drawer all this time.”
Tony’s eyes roamed over the items that had fallen from the old envelope. There was a typewritten letter, an entry form, and another piece of paper. The thing that caught his attention, though, was a Polaroid photograph that had fallen face-down on the table’s scarred surface.
Dani must have also been drawn to that item first, because she reached for it and flipped it over.
The photo was of the same woman, wearing the same dress. In this snap, she was leaning against a tree by the river, smiling at the camera.
“That’s the photo we chose to send to the magazine,” Mrs MacDonald explained, “because it showed off the dress best. It may look like summertime in these photos, but it was a cold January, as I recall. Mary somehow managed to choose a glorious day to take these.”
“Do you know who the model is?” Dani asked tapping a fingernail on the face in the faded photograph.
The shop owner nodded. “Yes, that’s Mrs Gibson.”
“Do you know her first name?”
“No, I never met her myself. But Mary was always going on about Mrs Gibson. I think she was a bit besotted with her.”
“What do you mean by that, exactly?”
“Well, just that Mary seemed to be very taken with her. It was Mrs Gibson this, Mrs Gibson that.”
Dani took out a notebook and pen. “Can you remember any details of what she said?”
Mrs MacDonald blew out a breath of air between her lips. “Hmm, now you’re asking. I can’t really remember the exact details. It was a long time ago.”
“Generally, then,” Tony suggested. “You say Mary was very taken with this woman. What gave you that impression?”
“Just the way she was always going on about her.”
“When was the first time she mentioned her? Was it when she was looking for a model for the competition?”
Mrs MacDonald thought about that for a moment, her brows meeting again as she stroked her chin. “Yes,” she said, after a minute or so of contemplation. “It when we reopened after Christmas. I told her she needed to find a model for the competition, and she said her little sister could do it. She had a sister called Colleen who was a couple of years younger than her. I told her she had to find an adult, because that was one of the competition rules; the model had to be an adult. So, I suggested her mum. Mary didn’t seem too keen on that idea and asked if I’d do it.”
She chuckled. “I was no more model material then, than I am now. Anyway, I gave her the Polaroid camera so she could familiarise herself with it and told her to ask around. I didn’t think she’d have much problem finding someone, to be honest. Who wouldn’t want to help a young, sweet girl like her enter a competition?”
“So, she found Mrs Gibson,” Tony said.
“Yes, she came into the shop the following weekend, full of the joys of spring. Said she’d met a young woman walking by the river who’d offered to model for her.”
“Did she say anything else about this woman?” Dani asked. “Like where she lived?”
“I got the impression she lived somewhere near Mary’s house, because I’m sure she told me later that she’d walked to Mrs Gibson’s house and had tea there. If the house was within walking distance, it couldn’t have been that far.”
“Did she say anything about the house itself?”
“No, I don’t think so. Oh, wait a minute, she said she met Mrs Gibson’s husband, and her young son.” She screwed up her face as she tried to remember. “Yes, I think that’s right. “You’re asking me all these questions about Mary, but you haven’t really said what for. The poor girl drowned over twenty years ago, so what’s this to do with?”
“Mary’s name has come up in the investigation of an ongoing case,” Dani said.
The shop owner narrowed her eyes. “Is this to do with those girls that were found at Temple Well?”
“I can’t really comment on that.”
A realisation dawned in the shop owner’s eyes, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God, you think Mary was murdered, don’t you?”
“As I said, Mrs MacDonald, I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”
Tears sprang into the older woman’s eyes. “Oh no, this is terrible. I thought it was a tragedy that she’d fallen into the river and drowned at such a young age, but murdered? Are you sure?”
Pointing at the photograph on the table, she said, “Do you think this woman did it?”
Tony could see that Mrs MacDonald’s mental state was worsening. Her eyes darted around the room, and then back to the photograph of the woman by the tree. She kept shaking her head, as if doing so could somehow change the past.
He knew that the best way to break her out of her flustered state was to get her to focus on something mundane, something that would redirect her attention.
“Mrs MacDonald, do you still have the camera?” he ask
ed, in an attempt to focus the woman’s mind elsewhere. “The Polaroid camera. Do you still have it?”
She nodded, regaining her composure slightly. “Yes, it’s upstairs.”
“Could we have a look at it?”
“Yes,” she said, getting up. “I’ll get it.”
“Does the camera have a strap?” Dani asked, before the shop owner disappeared.
“Yes, it’s got a nylon neck strap.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She had something to do now, something that would keep her from dwelling on the manner of Mary’s death.
“Could you just hold it by the strap when you bring it down, please?”
“Yes, all right.” She went through the archway and ascended the stairs.
Tony turned his attention to Dani. “Do we actually want the camera? I was just trying to distract her.”
“If the woman in the photo—“
“Mrs Gibson.”
“Mrs Gibson,” she said. “If that is Mrs Gibson. If she touched the camera at any point during the photo session, her prints might still be on there.”
“After all this time?”
“It’s unlikely, to be honest, but Forensics can have a look. They’re more likely to get a print off the back of that photograph.” She nodded at the photo of Mrs Gibson leaning against the tree. “If the woman even touched it at all.”
“She might have done,” Tony said. “I can imagine Mary taking the picture and giving it to her to see what she thought of it. That would transfer the woman’s fingerprints to the paper.”
“It’s possible. Anyway, if there is anything there, it’s going to help us identify this woman much quicker than conducting a blind search will.”
“So, you do think that identifying this woman is important,” Tony said.
“I’m open to the possibility that it might be.” She took two clear plastic evidence bags out of her pocket and laid them on the table. Then she produced a pair of disposable gloves from the same pocket and pulled them over her hands before placing the photograph into one of the bags and sealing it.
Silence of the Bones: A Murder Force Crime Thriller Page 14