28
Molly passed a nervous night in the doorway of an empty shop around the block from Coney Street. Over breakfast the next morning she learned that another homeless man had been murdered along there shortly before her arrival in York, but that did not seem to deter a number of rough sleepers from returning to their customary haunt.
‘Shouldn’t the police be examining the area?’ Molly asked one of the volunteers serving breakfast.
The woman shrugged. ‘They put up a cordon and wouldn’t let anyone go there for a few days.’
‘It was two weeks ago,’ another volunteer chipped in.
‘It must have been longer than that,’ the first volunteer said. ‘They closed the road for weeks.’
A rough sleeper disagreed. ‘It wasn’t as long as that.’
‘The shops complained,’ the first volunteer said. ‘That’s why they relaxed the cordon.’
‘That wasn’t the reason. The police would have been there for longer if anyone else had been killed,’ a rough sleeper called out, and a few others nodded and called out in agreement. ‘No one cares about a couple of homeless men being murdered.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ one of the volunteers replied, but she did not sound convinced.
By the time it began to grow dark, Molly was feeling hungry again. It helped to know that she would be given a good breakfast in the morning. In the meantime, she had to try and ignore the pangs of hunger stabbing at her guts. And there was another night ahead of her. With nowhere else to go, she made her way to St Sampson’s Square, but there was a policeman standing at the entrance to Nether Hornpot Lane in front of a cordon blocking off the alleyway. Several police vans were parked in the square and the pub was closed. Apart from the police presence, the square was deserted. Molly turned and slunk away before any of them noticed her loitering nearby.
Back in St Helen’s Square, she hung around, uncertain what to do.
It was busy there, with groups of Japanese tourists gabbling in excited voices, and well-dressed people entering smart restaurants that bordered the square. They seemed to belong to a different world. Seeing them made Molly feel hungry again, but there was nothing she could do about that until the morning. Right now her priority was to find somewhere safe to sleep. She decided against looking for another deserted alleyway. With a killer seemingly targeting rough sleepers, it was safer to be with other people. In any case, Nether Hornpot Lane was closed and she did not know where else she might find a doorway concealed from view.
‘Are you OK?’ a girl’s voice asked suddenly, right by her ear.
Startled, Molly spun round. She had not been mistaken in thinking the girl was speaking to her.
‘What?’ she asked stupidly. ‘What did you say?’
‘I asked you if you’re all right. You look lost.’
On the point of retorting that she was not lost and the other girl could mind her own business, Molly hesitated. The girl who had addressed her was little more than skin and bone. Thin blond hair hung to her shoulders and her eyes looked huge in her gaunt face. If she had not been so thin she would have been pretty but, as it was, her skull-like face made her look ill. Her limbs stuck out of her T-shirt and skirt like twigs that could be snapped with ease, adding to the impression of physical vulnerability. Molly had noticed her at breakfast that morning, but she doubted the other girl ever ate much. Molly relaxed. The girl hardly looked threatening and in any case she was clearly also homeless.
‘I asked you if you’re all right?’ she repeated, with more than a hint of impatience.
‘Yes, yes, that is, well, no, not really.’
‘Have you got somewhere to sleep tonight?’
‘No,’ Molly admitted.
The girl studied her for a moment, before saying, ‘You do know there are hostels in York where you can stay, don’t you? You have to be referred though, and you need to be from York. You can’t just parachute in and expect to be supported by the local council, you know. They’re all bastards like that.’
‘Are you living in a hostel?’
The girl gave a twisted smile. ‘No way.’
‘Why not? Aren’t you from York?’
‘It’s not that. It’s just that they have their rules, you know.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘Fuck that shit. I need my freedom.’
Freedom to shoot up, Molly thought.
‘No alcohol, no skunk, no nothing,’ the girl explained, rolling her eyes. ‘Like a fucking prison. I’m Rose,’ she added.
Without thinking, Molly gave her mother’s name. ‘I’m Laura.’
She was not sure why she lied, but it hardly mattered. Rose was probably not the other girl’s real name either. Perhaps she was right to prefer living on the street to being controlled by people running a hostel. At least on the street there was no one telling her what to do. With all her belongings crammed into a bag on her back, there was no need to find her way back to any particular place every night, and she could literally go anywhere. Except that she had nowhere to go. It was a pointless kind of freedom.
‘Some of us sleep in Coney Street,’ Rose said. ‘And they serve a proper cooked breakfast at one of the churches. I could show you the way there, if you like.’
Molly nodded. ‘I know where it is. But thanks,’ she added.
Rose seemed eager to be helpful and did not appear to have any ulterior motive in befriending her, but Molly was wary of her nonetheless.
‘How did you know I had nowhere to go?’
‘I didn’t. I just thought you looked lost.’
Molly sighed. Rose was right about that. She was lost. But at least she was no longer alone. It was growing dark, so she followed Rose to a wide covered shopfront in Coney Street. The shop must have closed down a while ago, because the sign had been taken down and the windows were painted white, but there were still posters in the doorway showing young women modelling summer dresses. Clearly it had once been a clothes shop. The models in the posters were all smiling.
‘This is me,’ Rose said. ‘I can show you an empty doorway, if you like.’
She led Molly a few doors along to another covered shop front where Molly would be sheltered if it rained during the night.
‘Someone used to sleep here, but he’s gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘People come and go,’ Rose said vaguely, gazing past Molly along the street.
Molly thanked her and unrolled her blanket. It was as comfortable a place as any, and Rose would be just a few doorways along the street. It was company of a sort. And in the morning, there would be a cooked breakfast. But as she closed her eyes, she shivered, wondering whether this was the spot where the killer’s first victim had slept.
29
Police Constable Geoff Jones was patrolling the area near the university building in York. He had not long been a member of the police force, and this was the first time he had been out on patrol on his own. It was exciting, cruising along in a police car, but for the most part the job fell short of his expectations. He would not have admitted as much to anyone he worked with, but he was bored. Other than dealing with the drunken fallout from stag dos and hen nights, his duties were generally tedious.
‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ his mum said when he complained about the monotonous routine.
She was proud of him for joining the police force, although she was concerned that policing was more dangerous now than it had been back when her father had been a police constable. Geoff was not so sure. With instantaneous communication, he would be able to summon backup at a moment’s notice, if anything kicked off. But nothing ever did.
‘Honestly, mum,’ he reassured her, ‘it’s no different to any other job except that I get to wear a uniform and drive a police car.’
Part of his route that morning took him to the Union Terrace car park. Driving through it,
his attention was caught by a scruffy van in the corner of the car park. As he drove by he noticed that not only was the back door dented, but both of the back tyres looked bald. He pulled over to take a closer look. Walking slowly around to the front of the vehicle, he saw the two front tyres were also bald. By now he had spotted something else that was even more interesting: the number plates were not the same, front and back. He went round to the back of the van again to take a proper look, and found he had not been mistaken in thinking the number plates did not match.
Faintly intrigued by his discovery, he bent down to examine the plates more closely and saw that a fake number plate had been stuck over the one on the back. Checking out the actual registration number, he was not surprised to learn that the van had been reported stolen that morning. He had sensed there was something dodgy about it from the moment he set eyes on it. He would not have been surprised to discover it was not insured and had no MOT. It just had that look about it. He was pleased to have been the one to find it, so soon after the owner had reported it stolen. It was a relatively insignificant discovery, but one that would look impressive on his work record, and at least he was doing something useful.
After registering that the stolen van had been found, he turned to have another look at it. It was odd that it had been left there with two different number plates. The van was white, but the original colour was almost lost beneath a film of grime. The bottom of the frame was rusty, and the bumper was scratched and dented. It was hard to understand why anyone in their right mind would bother to steal such a decrepit old heap of scrap metal. Kids out joyriding would surely have chosen a more exciting vehicle than this old van. But the fact that it was a van with no windows in the back raised other, more sinister, possibilities. It could have been used to transport stolen goods, or drugs, or illegal immigrants.
Geoff knew better than to get his fingerprints all over it, in case it was being used for illegal purposes, but he could not help wondering whether there was anything inside it. No one would ever know if he took a quick look, just to satisfy his curiosity. The thief might have hidden it in the corner of a car park where no one was likely to spot it, intending to come back for it later. If Geoff had not noticed it and identified it as a stolen vehicle, the thief might have returned for it and hidden it where it would never be found, in a closed barn, or at the bottom of a lake, for example. Having found the stolen vehicle, Geoff felt a sense of responsibility for it.
He glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then reminded himself that as a police officer he was entitled to examine a stolen vehicle. Even if he was seen, it did not matter. He was acting in an official capacity, in the public interest. After all, there could be something dangerous inside the van, like guns or knives. If he failed to check it was locked, children might come along and injure themselves playing with its contents. So it was his duty to check the van was secure.
Seizing the initiative Geoff pulled on gloves and tried the driver’s door. It was unlocked. He peered through the open door but there was nothing inside apart from an empty cigarette carton and a few old newspapers. He went around the back of the van and tried the handle. The door opened with a sharp squeal of protest. Shining his torch inside, Geoff was disappointed to see nothing but a roll of carpet. He stepped back and his attention was caught by the number of lengths of rope that had been tied around it. Secured in so many places, it could be full of drugs. Resisting the temptation to try and untie it, instead he shone a beam of light from his torch right inside the roll of carpet and fell back in alarm. Inside the rolled-up carpet he had seen what looked like a naked human foot. He took a closer look and saw there was indeed a human foot inside the roll of carpet. Someone was using the van to dispose of a dead body. Shaking, Geoff called the police station and reported his discovery.
‘You wanted a bit of excitement,’ his mother said tartly when he told her about his experience. ‘Perhaps you’ll be more careful what you wish for in future.’
30
Ann thought about Mark constantly in between their meetings. Sometimes they went for a few weeks without seeing each other, if one or other of them was not free on a particular Tuesday, and she missed him when that happened. They never met on a different day of the week, as Ann’s husband had a regular meeting on Tuesday evenings, so she was confident she could move around York without any risk of him spotting her travelling to or from her lover’s house. But since their last meeting, Ann had been bothered by Mark’s odd remarks. On balance she decided it would be best to ignore his strange behaviour and visit him the following Tuesday as though nothing unusual had happened. She hoped his unexpected bout of paranoia would have passed by then.
‘Sorry if I came across a bit weird last time,’ she imagined him saying, with an embarrassed laugh. ‘I was just a bit overwrought.’
Or perhaps he would say he had been exhausted and stressed. It was the beginning of term, after all, and he had been grumbling for a few weeks about having to work too hard.
‘Do you want to leave it for a while?’ she had asked before she had left his apartment on her last visit.
‘Leave what? I’m not sure I understand.’
‘I mean, do you want us to take a break from each other? Just until you’re on top of things at work.’
But he had been adamant that was not what he wanted at all.
‘No way. Seeing you is about the only thing that’s keeping me even vaguely sane at the moment. I honestly don’t think I’d be able to carry on if you stopped coming to see me.’
You’d find someone else to shag, she thought sourly, but she kept that to herself.
The following Tuesday, for the first time Mark did not answer the door when she went to see him. Remembering how he had told her he was being stalked, she became seriously concerned about his mental state, but there was nothing she could do. He might be ill, but she could not even phone him because they had deliberately agreed to not exchange home phone numbers. That had been a stupid decision which she now regretted, but it was too late to change it now. When they saw each other again, she would insist they at least knew each other’s numbers. Even if they resolved never to phone each other, they ought to be able to do so in an emergency. Mark could be lying in bed, sick, and she would know nothing about it. He might have had an accident and be in hospital, unable to contact her. After hanging around helplessly on his doorstep for a few minutes, she scribbled a note and posted it through the letterbox. She wrote in block capitals so the message could not be traced back to her, but Mark would know she had written it: ‘I came to see you as usual’. Then she went home, and did her best to hide her anxiety.
On Wednesday evening David brought home a free local paper, as he occasionally did. When he tossed it down on the kitchen table, Ann glanced at the front page and stifled a gasp. Distracted by a headline, she barely heard what David was saying to her.
‘Sorry, what did you say?’ she stammered.
‘I was asking you when dinner will be ready. I’m starving.’
He launched into a complaint about how he had been obliged to cut his lunch hour short and had barely had time to grab a sandwich, but Ann was not listening to him.
‘Another Local Man Found Dead. Police are treating the death as suspicious,’ she read. It was not the headline that had caught her attention. What had startled her was the photo accompanying the article, because she recognised Mark at once. The photograph itself was a familiar one. She had seen it above the fireplace in his flat many times. There was no doubt in her mind that her lover was dead, and the police believed he had been murdered. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to remain calm and turn her attention to the dinner.
‘It’ll be ready soon,’ she said, and was relieved that her voice sounded normal.
With a grunt, David left the room and, a moment later, Ann heard a blare of voices from the television in the living room. She knew she would not be left alone for long.
In a few minutes her family would arrive in the kitchen, clamouring for dinner. Now that she was on her own for a moment at least, her mind seemed to go numb. All she could think about was robotically turning over the potatoes and checking the meat was properly cooked. Peas. She had forgotten the peas. As she fumbled with the frozen packet, her fingers slipped and peas shot out, rolling all over the floor. All at once, she felt sobs bubble up in her chest and she could scarcely stop herself from bursting into tears. Pressing her lips together, she put some peas in the microwave, and swept the floor. She had to keep reminding herself she had no ostensible reason for tears. She had to continue as though nothing had happened. Outwardly, nothing had happened. Her loss was a secret, locked away in her private thoughts, and it had to remain there. Whatever else transpired, she had to hide her feelings.
‘Supper’s ready,’ she called out.
‘About bloody time,’ her daughter Aimee said, coming into the kitchen.
‘Don’t swear,’ Ann replied automatically, without turning round.
‘Dad’s watching the news,’ Aimee complained. ‘He won’t turn over.’
‘It’s important to know what’s going on in the world,’ her father said, following her into the room. ‘Do you want to grow up ignorant about absolutely everything?’
Aimee pulled a face. ‘I want to live without being bored all the time.’
‘Don’t argue with your father,’ Ann said.
It was more of a warning than an admonition. She knew how quickly he could fly into a rage. They ate in miserable silence. As soon as they finished the meal Aimee disappeared upstairs, and David looked directly at Ann.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, why are you asking? Why wouldn’t I be all right?’
Deathly Affair Page 13