by Jan Newton
‘That’s excellent, Julie. Well done. And where were they?’
‘Ah, well, that’s the bit they didn’t know.’
Morgan Evans tutted loudly. ‘Well that’s no use to anyone is it?’
Julie turned to glare at him, but Swift ignored him ‘So why didn’t Mrs Wilkinson tell us this?’
‘I think they’re all just a bit terrified of Major Wilkinson, to be honest. The lads didn’t want him to know that they’d let the man stay, or that Mrs Wilkinson knew about it.’
Swift nodded. ‘Fair enough, but let’s make sure we keep an eye on them over there shall we? Now, Morgan, what have you got for us?’
‘There’s just a bit more, Sir.’ Julie pulled a smaller drawing from the bag. ‘It’s the same rose.’ She held up Mick’s drawing of the tattoo on the man’s wrist next to the photograph of Rosa’s tattoo. ‘See?’
‘But that’s not conclusive, is it?’ Morgan shook his head. ‘A rose is just a rose. It doesn’t mean to say they were done by the same person. I think we’re adding two and two and coming up with nine here, Sir.’
‘Oh come on.’ Julie rolled her eyes at Morgan Evans. ‘There’s more than a nod to an Irish connection here, with the Quigley thing and Rosa’s shamrock tattoo. So maybe this guy, Ardal, is Rosa’s brother and just maybe she was down here trying to find her son.’
‘Everything is possible,’ Swift said. ‘Let’s remember to keep an open mind shall we? It’s not as though we’re falling over ourselves with clues is it, Morgan? Now, how did you get on with the market in Builth yesterday? Does anybody know anything else we didn’t already know?’ Swift wandered over to join Julie at the board.
Morgan Evans shook his head. ‘No, nothing interesting. One or two of the lads work a few of the markets, but they said they’d not heard anything from Builth or from anywhere else either.’
‘Rhys, Goronwy, anything to report?’ Swift asked.
‘I’m expecting a call back now, this morning,’ Rhys said. ‘We think we might have got somewhere with dental records on the victim.’ He dropped his bag on his chair and joined the others. ‘She had terrible teeth, which made it pretty conclusive apparently. They phoned late last night. She is Rosa, but her surname isn’t Quigley, it’s Harding.’
‘So where is she from?’ Julie asked.
‘Well, up until five years ago she was living in a place called Walton-le-Dale.’
‘That’s a posh part of Preston,’ Goronwy said. ‘We’ve contacted social services and the local GPs to see if she’s known to them. Turns out she was known to social services, but only for serial truanting from school. She fell off their radar at the same time the GP last saw her. After that we’ve nothing.’
‘Has someone contacted her last known address?’ Swift asked.
‘Not yet, Sir, we wondered if you might want the local police to visit, just in case it’s her parents still living there. They wouldn’t know what’s happened to her yet, would they?’
‘Good point, Goronwy.’ Swift blew out a breath. ‘I wonder if a little trip up to Preston might be an idea.’
‘I could do that, Sir.’ Morgan Evans pushed past the others to stand by Swift.
‘How old would that make her now, Goronwy?’ Swift asked. ‘When was the last time social services had any contact with her?’
‘She was sixteen.’ Goronwy checked his notes. ‘After that she seems to have got herself sorted out. But these reports mean that we now know she was twenty-three when she died. She did finish school, and without any further problems, according to social services. The woman I spoke to said she’d just got in with a rough crowd and she picked up a couple of warnings, but she was soon back on the straight and narrow. As far as she was concerned, Rosa was never a huge problem. She even did her A Levels and had a place at university.’
‘So where did she go to uni?’ Julie asked.
‘She didn’t. She was supposed to be going to Edinburgh to study veterinary science, according to the school, but she never showed up for registration.’
Swift sighed. ‘We’re going to have to talk to the parents then. She hasn’t come up anywhere else on the radar? No hospital visits, A&E, benefits?’
‘We only found out her real name late yesterday, Sir. We’ll get onto that now, this morning.’ Rhys headed back to his desk and Goronwy followed.
‘We now know she was a Type 1 diabetic too,’ Julie said.
Swift let the air escape from his mouth. ‘She didn’t have much going for her at all, did she, poor dab.’ He stared at the board. ‘OK, let’s consolidate what we’ve got and we’ll get together at three o’clock. Morgan, I’d like you to concentrate on this map. See if you can work out where it is and if you can get an address for the house circled here,’ Swift pointed at Julie’s map. Julie frowned but Swift handed her Mick’s drawing of the blond man. ‘And you can get this copied and circulated and see if you can work out who he is, Sergeant.’
‘That won’t be tricky, hardly at all, Sir.’
Julie collected the copies of the drawing of the missing man and mused, where on earth she should start? Goronwy had confirmed from social service reports and dental records that Rosa’s former name was Harding and that there was no record of a Rosa Harding of the right sort of age having been married in the UK.
‘Had she always been known as Rosa, do we know?’ She stood by Goronwy’s desk as he flicked through screens.
‘Rosa was her middle name, apparently. According to the dental records she was Caroline Rosa Harding. And there’s no record of a marriage in that name either.’
‘So she dropped the Caroline.’ Julie grimaced at the state of the dental X-ray on the screen. ‘I suppose that would make her a bit harder to trace if her parents were looking for her?’
‘So why did she run?’ Julie asked.
Goronwy shrugged. ‘Why does anyone do a runner?’
‘Parent trouble?’ Rhys grinned. ‘I sometimes felt like doing a runner when my dad got going.’
‘Your dad’s really sound, soft lad. And you wouldn’t have gone anywhere, not really. Your mum looked after you far too well for that.’
‘Why else would you just disappear?’ Julie tapped her biro on her teeth and Rhys cringed, as he always did. ‘If I’d had a place at uni to study veterinary science nothing would have stopped me from going.’
‘Maybe she was worried about going to university?’ Rhys said. ‘It’s not easy for some kids to leave home, is it?’
‘Easier to go to uni than to just run away though, surely?’ Julie said. ‘Unless…’
‘Go on, Sarge.’ Goronwy looked up at her.
‘Well we know she had a baby, don’t we? Kay Greenhalgh said she couldn’t be sure when that was, but what if she was pregnant when she left school or soon after and by the time she was due to go to Edinburgh three months later…’
‘She couldn’t hide it any longer.’ Rhys rolled his eyes. ‘Maybe her parents didn’t even know anything about the baby.’ He nodded towards Morgan Evans who was bent over the fragment of map across the room and lowered his voice. ‘Do you think the boss will send Morgan to see her parents?’
Julie shrugged. ‘I think if there’s a possibility that we may be right about her identity and provided we can find her parents, then maybe Lancashire Constabulary might be a better bet. The signet ring and the initials fit, but now we’ve got final confirmation from Kay Greenhalgh and the appalling teeth and your research that it is Rosa, or Caroline, then the parents will need local support.’
‘Sarge.’ Morgan Evans shouted across the office. ‘Do they have trams in Blackpool?’ When she got to his desk he was pointing at the very edge of the map at a faint black line with tiny cross-markings running between what they’d decided was a pier and the Ice Dome.
‘They do, Morgan.’ How the hell had she missed that? ‘And if that is Blackpool, then the oval patch of sand with a star on it will be the Sandcastle and the scribbly mess just below the Ice Dome isn’t an industrial estate. T
hat must be the Pleasure Beach.’ She shook her head. ‘Stupid.’
‘Call yourself a northerner, Sarge, fancy not spotting the tram track.’ Morgan Evans laughed. ‘It had to be somewhere on a west-facing coast with the beach over there didn’t it?’ He pointed to the pier. ‘So how come you know all the sights of Blackpool then?’
Julie blushed ‘It’s not that far from Manchester you know.’ She smiled, remembering girlie nights out, the Golden Mile, the cheesy illuminations and heart-stopping rides at the Pleasure Beach. ‘I may have been for the odd visit.’
‘So where’s this house, then?’
‘I’ve absolutely no idea, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find out, should it?’
Morgan laughed. ‘So I finally get to do some detecting, do I?’
Julie bit back a retort, which even by her standards of sarcasm would have seemed unkind.
To be fair to him, he had probably reacted in exactly the same way she would have done, if she’d failed her Sergeants’ Exam, twice, and some foreigner from the big city had been foisted on her.
‘Give me a minute,’ she said, heading for Swift’s office. Two minutes later she was back. ‘Come on,’ she said, handing him the pile of posters. ‘Hand that over to Rhys. He can bung it into Google Street Map and have a virtual wander round the streets of Blackpool. Let’s go and see if we can work out who this guy is and what he’s been up to.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Day Four
‘Another day, another market.’ Morgan indicated right, away from Smithfield and its trucks and trailers, and weaved his way onto the Dark Lane car park.
‘Do they sell different types of livestock at the different markets?’ Julie asked, wrinkling her nose at the smell from the sheds which wafted across the main road.
‘To be honest, I’ve no idea about livestock.’ Morgan felt in his pocket for change. ‘We’re not all welly-wearing hill farmers you know. Don’t believe everything you hear about the Welsh and sheep.’
Julie laughed, remembering her leaving party in Manchester and the red Hunter wellies and the sheep wrapping-paper that had been part of her leaving present. She handed him change, and he dropped the coins into the ticket machine.
‘So it’s not just me then, who doesn’t understand the black art of livestock management?’ She watched him stick the ticket on the windscreen and slam the car door. He began to walk away. ‘Aren’t you going to lock it?’
‘You worry too much, Sarge,’ Morgan said, but he locked the door anyway. ‘Right, where do we start?’
‘You tell me, you’re the local. If it were me, I think I might start with B&Bs, hotels, shops, caravan sites, the Leisure Centre?’ She nodded across the street.
‘Or maybe we could do North, South, East and West streets in order?’
‘Ooo tidy mind, I like that.’ Julie laughed, Morgan rolled his eyes and they headed into the Leisure Centre.
The pool had the usual damp smell in the air and squealing children behind the tall windows. The glass-fronted gym behind the desk was busy, the modern machines full of lycra-clad men and women, some of whom, Julie was relieved to note, had turned various shades, ranging from pale fuchsia to pickled beetroot.
‘Wow, that’s impressive.’
‘So you expected our exercise classes to be along the lines of sheep shearing and bale tossing, did you?’ Morgan was scowling.
‘Well, no. I just –,’ Julie frowned. ‘No, it’s not that at all. I’m just surprised at how modern it is, and how many people are in here during the day. Just wasn’t expecting it to be so popular.’
Morgan shook his head, but she could tell he was trying not to smile. ‘God, Sarge, you’re going to have to ditch those prejudices of yours.’
She followed him down to the reception desk. Was that really what it was? She thought of herself as the least racist person on the face of the planet, but did he have a point?’
‘What can I do for you?’ The girl behind the desk smiled up at them. ‘Are you looking to join the gym?’
Julie showed her warrant card. ‘Well, I hadn’t even considered it, but I might be persuaded to think about it.’ She handed a poster to the girl. ‘Have you seen this man anywhere recently, either here or just around Rhayader?’
The girl studied it carefully. ‘He’s so striking. No, I’d have definitely remembered him. Why, what’s he done?’
‘We’d just like to speak to him in connection with a current investigation, that’s all,’ Julie said.
‘That poor girl up at Pont ar Elan is it?’
‘Could we put one of these on your notice board?’ Morgan asked. ‘Just in case it jogs someone’s memory.’
‘No problem. I’ll put him on the board now, and I can stare at him from here.’
The girl took the poster and handed Julie a flyer and an application form. ‘All the information you need to join the gym is on there. You can pay monthly and it’s very reasonable.’
It was the same story everywhere they went. Nobody had seen the man and most were sure they would have remembered him if they had. At quarter to one, Julie dragged Morgan into the café by the clock tower.
‘I’m starving, and I have to make sure of a decent meal at lunchtime, because it will be beans and bloody lentils again tonight.’ She took out her purse and dropped her bag on a chair by the window. ‘There’s only so much beige food I can take. What do you fancy?’ She ordered food and brought their coffees back to the table.
Morgan blew at the froth on his latte. ‘How did he get there?’
‘How did he get where?’
‘The farm. How did he get from wherever he was to there? We’ve not found a car, there’s no public transport and we’ve asked every taxi company within a fifty mile radius.’
‘He could have hitched a lift.’ Julie nodded. ‘But that’s a really good point, Morgan. He could have even walked or cycled.’
‘And it could have been from anywhere at all, to be honest, couldn’t it?’
One of the girls from behind the counter slapped knives, forks and serviettes onto the table. ‘You forgot to pick these up,’ she said, pointing with her head towards the rack of cutlery by the till. She moved the last few posters to make room. ‘Is this him?’
‘Is this who?’ Julie asked, given that any reference on the posters to Mid Wales Police was hidden under Julie’s arm.
‘The man you’re looking for about that murder up the road.’
‘We’re only trying to eliminate him from our enquiries,’ Morgan said.
‘How do you know we’re looking for him?’ Julie asked.
‘I was in the gym when you went to the Leisure Centre,’ the girl said. ‘My sister’s on the desk.’
‘And have you seen him before?’ Julie asked, her impatience less well hidden than she would have liked, judging by Morgan’s expression.
‘Well you wouldn’t forget a face like that, would you?’ The girl smiled. ‘That body of his wouldn’t have put you off either.’
‘And he was in here?’ Julie handed her a poster.
‘Yeah, a week, week and a half ago maybe? I don’t know what day, but it was sunny, because he sat at one of the tables outside. He had a burger and a pot of Earl Grey tea.’
‘Do you remember all your customers in such detail?’
Julie smiled and the girl became flustered.
‘It was the tea. I wouldn’t have expected a bloke like that to drink Earl Grey tea.’
‘A bloke like what?’ Morgan asked.
‘You know, athletic like. Oh I don’t know. He just looked fit.’ She grinned. ‘I wouldn’t have said no.’
Julie smiled back. ‘How was he dressed, can you remember?’
‘Jeans, white tee shirt, leather jacket, walking boots.’
‘Did he have a bag with him? A rucksack maybe or a suitcase?’
The girl nodded. ‘He had a rucksack, a great big one. The sort you’d use if you were camping out.’
Julie and Morgan exchanged a g
lance. ‘Was there a tent, then?’ Morgan asked.
The woman behind the counter shouted, ‘Burger and chips twice.’
‘I’ll just get your food, I’ll be back now.’
Julie drummed her fingers on the table as she waited.
‘Thank God she fancied him,’ Morgan observed. ‘If he’d been as skinny as the bird on the Monks’ Trod, she might not have remembered him.’
‘Charming.’ Julie glared at him. ‘There’s every possibility that the bird on the Monks’ Trod, as you so delicately put it, was ill.’
‘Or a druggie.’
‘We don’t know that for sure. Most of the track marks are pretty ancient. We know she hadn’t been using much at all in the recent past, only one or two of the marks were new ones.’
‘Do we?’
‘According to Kay Greenhalgh she hadn’t. Mind you,’ Julie gazed out of the window at the traffic in its incessant waltz around the clock tower, ‘if the brother wasn’t into drugs either, then there’s every chance that this isn’t drug-related at all.’