Shelley laughed rather too hard and tugged at his beard. He shook the bracelets back down on to his wrist. ‘Long as you enjoyed it.’
‘Ham and eggs was good,’ Thorne said.
Shelley bowed his head in thanks for the compliment, but insisted that he could not take much credit. ‘Local ham’s very good.’
‘Long as it didn’t come from a stolen piglet.’
Shelley laughed again. ‘You’ve been talking to Farmer Bob then, have you? Thinks we’re all thieves.’
‘Not sure that particular pig would be very fresh now anyway.’
The chef stared down at the table. ‘So, you done, then?’ When Thorne said that they were, Shelley shouted the young waitress across and told her to take the plates away. He stepped aside as she reached a little awkwardly for them. Said, ‘Can’t get the staff.’ He watched her walk away towards the kitchen then turned back to Thorne. ‘Just wanted to say that I’m finished in an hour or so if you fancy a drink later on. I enjoyed our conversation the other evening.’
‘I don’t know how long we’ll be staying,’ Helen said.
Shelley nodded. ‘Well, the offer’s there. I’ll be out in the garden probably, if you fancy one after hours.’ He nodded towards the bar. ‘Can’t see his nibs firing me for that, not with the boxes of knocked-off whisky he’s got piled up in the cellar.’
As the chef walked away, Helen muttered, ‘Wanker.’
‘He’s certainly full of himself.’
‘I saw him the other day with that girl. The waitress. Coming out of one of those buildings in the garden.’
‘That’s where he stays,’ Thorne said.
‘She’s only a kid.’
‘He’s not that old himself.’
‘Probably got her into bed by writing her some shit poem.’ Helen looked disgusted. ‘Look at him.’
Thorne turned and saw that Shelley was standing in the doorway, surveying the crowd proprietorially. He followed the chef’s gaze and saw a young girl who had just come in and was walking a little nervously towards the bar. She was eighteen or thereabouts, hair tied back into a tight ponytail, and from where they were sitting, Thorne and Helen could hear snippets of the conversation when she arrived at the bar.
‘What you having, Rory?’ Trevor Hare seemed pleased to see her. ‘Coke, is it? Or do you fancy going mad? Have a shandy if you want, I shan’t tell anyone.’
‘Coke’s fine,’ the girl said.
As Hare worked the drinks gun, he asked the girl something about her grandfather. She said that he was fine. ‘Well, not fine, but you know.’ She said, ‘Those places are awful though.’
‘Tell him I said hello,’ Hare said, ‘when you see him.’
The girl sipped her drink for a while, raising her head to cast a glance towards Thorne and Helen’s table every few minutes.
‘You know her?’ Thorne asked.
‘Never seen her before,’ Helen said.
Once she had finished her drink, the girl stepped away from the bar and walked towards them. She looked as though she was heading for the Ladies, but cut across to their table at the last moment.
‘I saw your picture in the papers,’ she said.
‘OK,’ Helen said.
‘You’re a friend of Linda Bates.’
Helen nodded.
‘Can I sit down?’
Thorne stood up and the girl squeezed in between them. She was slight, with legs like matchsticks in skinny jeans and a short, silver Puffa jacket. Close up, she was pretty, though the heavy make-up was working hard to disguise the fact. She had looked a little severe from a distance and it was hard to know if that was what she wanted or not.
‘This is a bit of a nightmare, actually,’ the girl said. ‘You being a friend of his wife’s. But I’m hoping it means you’ll help me.’
‘Help you how?’ Helen asked.
‘Help me prove Steve didn’t kill anyone.’
The girl looked at Helen and then at Thorne. She was making a fair attempt at hiding her nerves. Eventually, Thorne said, ‘Why don’t you think he killed anyone?’
‘Because the night everyone reckons he took Jessica Toms, he was with me. It was me he was meeting in that pub.’
Helen looked past the girl at Thorne. He gave the smallest of nods, happy to let Helen take the lead.
‘You and Steve were together?’ Helen asked. ‘That’s what you’re saying?’
The girl nodded. ‘Yeah, it was all crap, that stuff about getting a quote or whatever. He’d used the same excuse a couple of times before. We had to meet in places that were a bit out of the way, obviously.’
‘Right,’ Helen said.
‘So, I can give him an alibi, can’t I?’
‘Sounds like it.’
The girl smiled then let out a deep breath. ‘So, what do we do? I need you to tell me the best way to do things, you know?’
‘OK, let’s take it one step at a time,’ Helen said. The girl could easily have passed for eighteen, but Thorne and Helen had both overheard the conversation at the bar. What the landlord had said to her about drinking. ‘How old are you?’
‘Sixteen,’ the girl said. ‘Seventeen in a few months. In six months.’
‘And how long have you and Steve been seeing each other?’
The girl sat back and shook her head. ‘Yeah, I knew you’d ask that.’
‘So, you know why I’m asking.’
‘We started going out a while ago, but we didn’t do anything until I was sixteen, all right? I swear.’
‘OK.’
‘Steve didn’t want to. He’s not like that.’
‘There’s no need to get upset,’ Helen said. ‘We just need to get the facts straight.’
The girl reached into an oversized handbag and took out a compact. She checked her face then laid the mirror on the table. ‘You’re both coppers, right?’
‘Not round here though,’ Helen said.
‘Will you come with me?’ The girl looked at Thorne. ‘When I go to the police?’
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ Thorne said. He looked around, recognised the faces of several local officers, though none seemed to be paying him any attention. He exchanged another nod with Trevor Hare, then turned back to the girl. ‘But we’ll tell you exactly what to say.’
‘Promise? Because I’m shitting myself.’
‘Just tell the truth,’ Helen said.
‘I am telling the truth.’
‘I know you are.’
‘We’ll do everything we can,’ Thorne said. He took out his phone. ‘Give me your number and I’ll give you mine. You can call any time, OK?’
The girl took her own phone from her bag, clearly comfortable with this familiar exchange of information. Her hands flew across the keypad as Thorne told her his phone number.
‘Now call me,’ he said. As soon as his phone rang he ended the call. ‘Now, I’ve got your number. What’s your name?’
‘Oh, God.’
‘I heard Trevor call you Rory?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Short for Aurora.’ She clocked Thorne’s look of surprise. ‘Blame my mum. Latin for dawn, apparently. She found it in some book. Could have been worse, I suppose. I could have been called Dawn.’
‘It’s a nice name,’ Helen said.
‘You reckon?’
‘Aurora . . . ?’
‘Harley,’ the girl said. ‘Like the motorbike.’
Thorne added the name to his contacts list. ‘Right, first thing is, you need to get across to the Police Control Unit. Tell them you’ve got important information and they’ll take it from there.’
‘That easy?’
‘To start with, yeah,’ Thorne said. He looked at the girl’s small hands as her fingers drummed against the edge of the table. The chipped pink
nail polish. ‘Listen, it’s brave of you to come forward.’
The girl shrugged. ‘Had to, didn’t I?’
‘Not everybody would have done.’
‘Up to them, isn’t it?’
‘Still.’
‘I love Steve and he says he loves me.’
Thorne caught Helen’s pained expression. He guessed she was thinking about Linda. ‘I’m just saying, knowing this place. It might not end up being very easy.’
‘I know what they’re like.’ The girl looked around. ‘It was hard enough just coming over and talking to you two. I could have done with some vodka in that Coke, I tell you.’
‘Well, we’re on your side.’ Thorne looked at Helen. ‘Right?’
Helen was already pushing her chair back, getting to her feet. ‘Excuse me . . . ’
They watched Helen walk quickly away towards the toilets. ‘She your girlfriend?’ the girl asked.
Thorne nodded.
‘Well you know then.’
‘What?’
‘What it’s like when you care about someone.’ She picked up her compact again, checked her make-up. ‘Being brave doesn’t come into it.’
Helen dropped hard on to her knees in front of the toilet bowl and grabbed the edge of the seat with only a few seconds to spare. She retched once, twice, then heaved up the food that the chef had been so proud of, the taste not much better coming up than it had been going down. She carried on retching, her stomach in spasm until there was nothing left. She spat and wiped away the gloopy brown strings then climbed, a little unsteadily to her feet.
She flushed, then stepped out of the cubicle and across to the dirty sink. She threw cold water on to her face and ran wet fingers through her hair.
She didn’t look quite as bad as she felt.
When she came back into the bar a few minutes later, she could see that Thorne and the girl were no longer at the table. She found them on the pavement in front of the pub.
‘I need to go and see Linda,’ she said. ‘Now.’
Thorne nodded.
The girl was looking at her feet.
Helen walked across and wrapped her arms around the girl. Even with a thick jacket, there was nothing of her. She said, ‘Don’t be scared.’ She pulled the girl closer and held on. ‘There’s no need to be scared.’
FIFTY-SIX
‘She’s lying,’ Linda said. ‘Course she is. Polesford’s full of little bitches like that.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And you’d know, would you?’
‘I talked to her,’ Helen said. ‘She’s just trying to help Steve.’
‘Oh, is she?’
‘So are we . . . Tom and me. We think we can get proof that he didn’t do it and this girl’s statement alongside that—’
‘Fuck her statement and fuck her help.’
They were standing in the kitchen and Linda did not seem too concerned about their conversation being overheard. She had been in bed when Helen arrived and the officer watching TV in the next room had looked as though he was ready to turn in himself when he’d let Helen in.
‘I know this can’t be easy to hear,’ Helen said.
‘That what makes you such a good copper, is it? Your sensitivity.’ Linda tightened the cord of her dressing gown and stared until Helen looked away. ‘Whose side are you on, anyway?’
‘I told you, yours and Steve’s.’
‘And how do you think things are going to be between me and Steve after this?’
‘Isn’t proving he’s innocent more important?’
‘Right this minute, no it isn’t,’ Linda said. ‘Right this minute, I couldn’t care less.’
‘Shall I make some tea?’
Linda looked at her, barked out a laugh. ‘You are joking, right?’ She pushed past Helen to the fridge, took out a half-empty wine bottle then reached up to the cupboard and grabbed a glass. She poured, drank. She said, ‘Can you prove Steve didn’t do it, or can’t you?’
‘Tom thinks he can.’
‘Good.’
‘It’s all about when that girl was killed. The insects on the body—’
Linda raised a hand to shut Helen up. She clearly had no need of further detail when there was a more basic reason for asking. ‘So why does anyone need to know anything about this girl?’
‘It can’t hurt to establish an alibi,’ Helen said.
‘Can’t hurt you.’
At that moment, Helen understood that this pain was something Linda was familiar with. That it was not the first time she had reached for a bottle late at night; eaten up by rage and self-pity and railing against one of those ‘little bitches’ Polesford was apparently so full of.
It was almost certainly the first time she had shared it.
‘I should let you get some sleep,’ Helen said.
‘Sleep? You think?’
‘Sorry.’ Helen was struggling for words that did not sound pat or pathetic. The truth was that she wanted to be out of the house, out of the firing line. Every snap and sneer was adding weight to the guilt and the shame.
Her throat burned and she could still taste the sick in her mouth.
The copper next door was watching football. A roar went up, a goal or a bad tackle.
‘I feel so stupid,’ Linda said.
Helen said nothing. For trusting him? For choosing to believe that he wouldn’t do this again?
‘What am I supposed to tell the kids?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How can I tell Charli that we know her stepdad’s innocent because he was with a girl younger than she is?’ The wine had gone and now the fight was quickly going out of Linda too. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the worktop.
‘What can I do?’ Helen asked.
Linda said, ‘Tell me what she’s like.’ She folded her arms and smiled grimly, as though relishing Helen’s discomfort. ‘Is she pretty?’
‘She wears too much make-up.’
Linda rolled her eyes. ‘Short? Tall? Has she got nice firm tits?’
‘How is this going to help?’ Helen asked.
‘Know your enemy,’ Linda said. ‘We learned that a long time ago, right, Hel?’ She plucked casually at a loose thread on her dressing gown, pulled it out. ‘So, what’s her name?’
There was another roar from the adjacent room. The copper shouted something at the television.
Helen said, ‘I don’t know.’
It appeared that even the most committed of gawpers needed to sleep sometimes. Outside, there was only a group of kids smoking and drinking cans of cider under a streetlamp. They didn’t give Helen a second look. A pair of uniformed officers were talking at the end of the drive.
‘How did that go?’ Thorne asked as they drove away.
‘How do you think?’
Helen could only hope that the conversation would begin and end there. As of now, she had no wish to talk about how painful it had been in that house, for Linda and for her. She did not want to discuss the things that had been said or why others had remained unsaid.
The reasons for the lies.
‘Can’t have been easy.’
‘No,’ Helen said.
It was only a five-minute drive back to Paula’s at this time of night. They drove in silence through the town centre, deserted save for a few people carrying kebabs who had presumably been drinking somewhere after hours or simply didn’t know any better.
The streetlighting stopped as the road narrowed just past the final parade of shops, and within a few seconds of Thorne flicking on his main beam they drove past three teenagers walking back towards the centre of town. They held up their hands against the dazzle. Gestures were made.
‘Cheeky bastards.’
‘Turn round,’ Helen said.
‘Whe
re?’
‘Reverse then.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Those boys . . . ’
Thorne understood and did as he was told. Mercifully the road was straight with no traffic to be seen and, within thirty seconds, Thorne had slammed on the brakes and Helen was getting out of the car.
The boy with the dirty blond hair grinned when he saw Helen walking towards him, but the smile disappeared when he saw Thorne; the look on his face. The Asian kid and his mate took a step back, moved behind the blond boy, the biggest of the three.
‘Good move,’ Thorne said. ‘Not such ballsy little gangstas now, are you?’
‘What d’you want?’ The blond kid shrugged, put his shoulders back.
‘I don’t want to piss about.’ Thorne stepped close to him. ‘Now, I could just do you with assaulting a police officer, but I’m guessing you don’t really want a criminal record, not if you want that special job in KFC, right?’
‘It’s her word against ours,’ the boy said.
‘And I don’t fancy all the paperwork, if I’m honest.’
The boy looked at him, squared up. The others had stepped even further back into the shadows.
‘So, say sorry nicely, I’ll just give you a slap and we can forget all about it. Fair enough?’
‘Let me,’ Helen said.
The boy raised his hands to protect his face as Helen pushed in front of Thorne and came at him, but it wasn’t his face she was aiming at.
Her knee came up hard and she stepped smartly back to give the boy room to go down.
The Asian kid said, ‘Fuck . . . ’
The boy dropped to his knees and then rolled on to his side on the grass verge, moaning and cursing, cradling his balls. Thorne walked back to the car as Helen moved to put one foot on either side of the writhing figure on the ground, leaned over and spat.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Thorne was about to set off for Warwick, to collect Phil Hendricks, when he got a call from Aurora Harley.
‘Can I see you?’ she asked. ‘I went to the police, like you said, and they were horrible. I don’t know what to do.’
Helen was spending the morning at Paula’s. She said she would wait until Linda got back from visiting Steve. She said she would go and see her then, presuming Linda wanted her to and was up to it. She didn’t say any more about what had happened the night before; the late-night visit to tell Linda about Aurora, the incident with the boys at the side of the road.
Time of Death Page 27