by Carol Wyer
‘Yeah. I stayed inside with a few tins of beer. It’s been a shit week, what with Ava being found. I drank a bit. Beatrice rang me. We talked about what we’re going to do for Ava. We’ve got to organise a funeral for her, only Beatrice can’t face it. I went to the funeral parlour to try and sort it out on my own but I couldn’t. You get a book, you know? A book to go through like a fucking shopping catalogue, full of things you might want for your kid’s funeral: white horses to pull a white hearse, fingerprint keepsakes, coffins decorated with your child’s favourite fascinations, and it’s like being stabbed in the heart. Even though I suspected she might be dead, all the time she’s been missing, there’s always been a possibility she was out there, somewhere. Soon, all I’ll have to remind me of her will be a headstone and whatever pottery ornaments we choose to leave beside it. She was a life. She was my life. It hurts so much. She’s gone. Forever.’ He stopped and bit on his lower lip to stop it from trembling.
His pain was palpable. Natalie couldn’t ignore it.
‘You will get through this and you’ll remember happier moments and times you spent with Ava, those occasions that filled you with joy and made you laugh, and your memories will keep you connected to her. She’ll never be gone completely.’
He wiped the back of his hand over his eyes. ‘It doesn’t feel like I’ll ever be able to get to that point.’
‘You will. It’s early days. You need time.’
He didn’t reply. Natalie still wasn’t sure if he had enough anger in him to harm other children who’d been at the party. She wanted to probe further but if it came back that he’d left the car park at around four thirty as he claimed, it was unlikely he’d have murdered Rainey.
‘When you went back to your van, did you see anybody else walking along the pavement?’
‘Nah. It was quiet. Didn’t see a soul.’
‘On Wednesday, is there anyone who can vouch for you?’
‘I kept the door locked and had the telly on all afternoon. I didn’t speak to anyone. Apart from Beatrice.’
‘Did Beatrice ring you on your mobile?’ asked Natalie, thinking it would be easy to check to see what time she had called.
‘Nah, she rang the fixed line cos I’d switched off my mobile by then.’
‘Any idea what time that was?’
‘I was a bit sozzled by then. Couldn’t tell you. Sometime during the afternoon. She’ll know exactly when. Why?’
‘Audrey Briggs was murdered on Wednesday afternoon.’
He lifted his face. ‘You think I killed her?’
‘I think we need to eliminate you from our enquiries. There’s a difference.’
‘I didn’t. I was far too drunk to drive. I didn’t leave the house at all.’
‘You wouldn’t object to giving us a DNA sample?’
‘No. Take it. I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘Thank you.’ She left the room to arrange for Ian to take the sample. In the office Murray was pouring over a screen.
‘I’ve found him,’ said Murray. ‘He left the car park at four twenty-seven. Look. He’s alone in the van.’
The photo showed a serious-faced Carl at the wheel of his van.
‘I also rang the pub, the Dove and Horses. The manager said there were two customers in at about three thirty p.m. The man who matched Carl’s description banged his glass down and stormed out after about fifteen minutes. The woman, who was wearing sunglasses, followed him a minute or two later. Both left behind unfinished drinks. Manager said he thought they were rowing but they kept their voices down so he couldn’t hear what about. The Dove and Horses to the car park is about thirty minutes on foot, which accounts for how he was picked up on the library camera at four fifteen. He’s unlikely to have murdered Rainey.’
‘Ian, will you take a DNA sample, please, and then let him go home?’
‘Another dead end,’ said Murray, folding his arms.
‘But another lead. What was Elsa really doing back in town?’
‘You suspect it wasn’t because she wanted to tell Carl she was sorry about Ava?’ Murray asked.
‘Strange, isn’t it? She had many opportunities to speak to Carl in the past but came back to the UK a couple of weeks ago, just before Ava’s body was unearthed, and then happened to be in town the day Rainey was killed. Can you see if the tech team has worked out her whereabouts yet? I’d very much like to talk to Elsa; and Ian, ask Beatrice Sawyer what time she phoned Carl on Wednesday.’
Lucy looked up and spoke. ‘Natalie, I’ve rung the warehouse that distributes parcels. They’re shut at the moment and open again at eight tomorrow. I’ll head down there first thing.’
‘Thanks.’
‘The swimming lessons are at nine tomorrow,’ said Ian as he edged out of the door. ‘I’ve left the details of the netball club on your desk.’
Natalie read through them. She’d be able to talk to the organiser the following morning. She’d start her day at the leisure centre. ‘Lucy, why don’t you get off too? It’s late and I don’t think we can do much more this evening.’
She dropped down at her desk, thinking back over her conversation with Carl. He hadn’t come across as a man who’d want to harm children. Did she trust her instincts enough to believe this? Her phone buzzed. It was Mike.
‘Hey. Got some news for you. I’m with Naomi and we’ve identified the substance under Rainey’s nails. It’s a mixture of clay, presumably from the clay cat in her school bag, but there are fibres which we believe to be leather and a hair we think might have come from an animal – a dog.’
‘I wonder how the fibres got under her nails.’
‘Here’s a couple of theories for you. They’re under her right hand and she is right-handed, so maybe she was strangled by something leather – a belt or equivalent – and tried to tug it away from her throat, or, she picked them up earlier in the day at school, from a bag or from pulling at a belt.’
‘And the dog hair?’
‘Got caught up with the clay. She patted a dog. She picked them up from the bushes she squeezed through to reach Monks Walk. Can’t think of anything else.’
‘Fair enough. Good suggestions.’
‘We’ve run tests on the fibres we lifted from the bushes we think she came through, and they’re a match for her school skirt and socks. There were also other man-made fibres, black cotton, not from any of her clothing.’
‘From her attacker’s clothes?’
‘Maybe, or might have been there for a while. I’m sure other kids would have tried to use that as a cut-through in the past. School uniform is black trousers and white shirt.’
‘Okay. Cheers, Mike.’
Murray reappeared with a sheet of A4 in his hand. ‘Could have something here. Elsa was in contact with Barney.’
‘Her ex-husband. He said she’d been in touch for his birthday a couple of weeks ago and they hadn’t been in touch for a while.’
‘He lied. She sent him another email, asking him to meet her when she was in the UK.’
‘When did she send it?’
‘Thursday, 20 April. Just over a week ago.’
‘He must have known she was in the UK when he spoke to us. Bastard. Right, you up for speaking to him now?’
‘You bet.’
As she left the office, she sent a text to David, explaining she’d be out much later than she intended. She hoped he’d had a chance to sort things out with Josh. As much as she wanted to go home and be a mother to her son, she couldn’t leave this. Children’s lives were at risk, and whether she liked it or not, her family had to take a back seat.
Twenty-Eight
FRIDAY, 28 APRIL – EVENING
Barney Townsend opened the door a mere crack and peered out at Natalie and Murray. He was in a dressing gown, cord wrapped tightly around his lean frame.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘We’d like a few words,’ said Natalie.
‘Can’t it wait until morning? I was in bed.’
‘It’s a little early to be in bed, isn’t it?’
‘Not for me. I’m an early riser.’
‘I’m afraid it can’t wait. It’s regarding your ex-wife Elsa. You lied to us, Mr Townsend, and that’s something we can’t ignore.’
He visibly deflated and opened the door.
‘I prefer to say that I withheld information. Information I believed to have no bearing on your investigation.’ He shut the door quietly behind them.
‘That’s not for you to decide. You could have impeded our investigation and that’s something I don’t take lightly.’
He didn’t move from the door. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Why you didn’t tell us that Elsa was back in the UK?’
‘I didn’t think it was important.’
Natalie clenched her fists tightly and spoke deliberately. ‘Children are dead. In my book that’s more than reason enough for you to tell us everything you know about Elsa.’
He shifted from one slippered foot to the other. ‘I didn’t think—’ he began. He was stopped immediately by Natalie lifting her hand up.
‘We want to talk to Elsa and we suspect you know her whereabouts.’
‘She had nothing to do with Ava’s disappearance.’
‘Have I not made myself clear, Mr Townsend? We shall decide what is and isn’t relevant in this case. Not you.’ Natalie drew herself up to her full height and looked him in the eye. ‘Where is she?’
‘Here,’ came a voice from the staircase.
Natalie’s head whipped in the direction of the woman speaking. Elsa Townsend stood at the top of the stairs. She descended slowly, clinging to the banister. Barney ran a hand through his thick hair.
‘It’s not what it looks like…’ he began.
Natalie shot him a steely look.
‘Can we sit down to discuss this?’ Elsa asked. ‘I’m not too good on my feet for a long spell. I’ve been quite ill recently and don’t have much energy at the moment.’
Barney led the way to the sitting room. Elsa took the chair nearest the window that faced a two-seater settee and an old rocking chair.
‘I’m sorry. It’s totally my fault Barney didn’t divulge my whereabouts. I made him promise. I was terrified you’d think I was to blame for Ava’s death, what with her body being found on the craft centre premises. I needed time to digest it all. I’d not been back in the UK five minutes when I heard about that. I ought to have come forward immediately and cleared it up but you’d been to talk to Barney and he told me Audrey, who’d been at the centre that day, had also been killed, and I didn’t know what to do. Here I was in the UK and a second child dead, and me with no proof of my whereabouts at the time. I thought it would be better if you all believed I was still in Spain.’
‘Why did you return in the first place?’
Elsa shuffled her bottom further back into the chair. ‘I kept getting headaches that got worse and worse. I had them for a few years, even before I went to Spain, but the last few months, they’ve been impossible to live with. I went to a specialist in Spain and discovered I’ve got a tumour on my brain. When you’re facing something like that, your priorities change. I became homesick. I wanted to sort things out between me and Barney before I have surgery. Put my affairs in order, if you like.’ She gave him a half-smile. ‘I was staying in a motel but I had a blinder of a headache yesterday and he let me use the spare room.’
‘You met up with Carl Sawyer yesterday?’
‘I did. I tried to talk to him soon after Ava went missing. I visited him and his wife several times to tell them how sorry I was, but they wouldn’t speak to me. They thought I was responsible and I suppose to a certain degree I was. I let that little girl out of my sight and she disappeared. I met up with Carl because I wanted to try one last time. I wanted him and his wife to know that there hasn’t been a single day I haven’t wished I could turn back the clock and relive that one day. When I heard Ava had been found, it seemed even more important to speak to them both. I didn’t know they’d split up. I tried their house but Beatrice’s mother refused to let me speak to her. With Barney’s help, I located Carl and met him in town.’ She looked away for a second and shook her head sadly. ‘It made no difference. He still hates me and blames me.’
‘What did you do after Carl left you at the Dove and Horses?’
‘Walked to the top of the road and waited for Barney to pick me up. I can’t drive at the moment.’
‘Barney was in town with you?’
‘I was,’ he replied.
‘What did you do while Elsa was talking to Carl?’
‘Hung around the shops, waiting for her to ring me. It was only for about an hour.’
‘Where did you park?’
‘In one of the bays near the pub. You get up to two hours’ free parking there.’
‘I’d like to know your exact movements for that time, please.’ Natalie looked directly at him.
A deep furrow appeared between his eyes. ‘I went to the newsagent’s and browsed through some magazines. I bought a gardening magazine then sat on the bench near Greggs and had a takeaway coffee and read my magazine until Elsa rang me.’
‘Have you got your till receipt for the magazine?’
‘I threw it away. It might be in the kitchen bin.’
‘Would you check for me, please?’
‘What’s this all about?’ he asked, rising as he spoke.
‘It’s about the murder of another girl.’
‘You don’t think I’m a suspect, do you?’
‘Could you just locate the receipt please, sir?’
Elsa continued speaking. ‘I didn’t kill Ava. I have absolutely no idea who might have done such a thing. I didn’t kill Audrey. I remember her. She was a sweet little thing with a snub nose and gap-teeth. She was the one who first noticed Ava wasn’t with the group.’
‘What about Rainey Kilburn? Do you remember a girl called Rainey?’
‘I do. She went off on the ponies with Harriet. She kept squealing loudly.’ She winced at the memory. ‘I remember her vividly. I remember them all. I won’t ever forget them. I see twenty children in my dreams most nights. I see their faces and hear their voices and I count all twenty of them, then I wake up and remember there were only nineteen. Is Rainey dead too?’
‘She was killed yesterday afternoon.’
Elsa’s eyes grew large and she spoke in a whisper. ‘So that’s why you want to know where we both were.’ She was interrupted by Barney.
‘I think this is it,’ he said, handing a crumpled piece of paper to Murray, who opened it and read out the time of the sale.
‘Three fifty.’
Natalie would have to check how far away the newsagent was from Monks Walk, but she was fairly certain Barney couldn’t have got there and back in time to have murdered Rainey and then picked up Elsa. Their phone records would confirm when Elsa made the call to be collected, and safety cameras would have registered his car in that area as they left. It was looking like both had strong alibis.
‘Are you staying here for long?’ she asked Elsa.
‘For the foreseeable,’ said Barney. Elsa gave him a grateful look.
‘We might need to talk to you again,’ said Natalie.
‘We’ll be here,’ said Elsa.
‘Can’t be them, then,’ said Murray as they drove away.
‘It’s not looking that way. I don’t know where to turn next,’ said Natalie. ‘We really need a lucky break. I hope tomorrow gives us one and that it comes in time. I really don’t like the idea of the killer buying five yellow dresses.’
‘I’ll go back and confirm Barney couldn’t have reached Monks Walk and strangled Rainey,’ said Murray.
‘I was going to do that. You get off.’
‘Yolande’s out with her mates tonight. I’m fine to do it.’
‘Cheers. I could do with getting home. Got a few family issues.’ She bit her tongue. She must be overwrought. It wasn’t like her to discuss personal
matters with a colleague. Fortunately, Murray didn’t push her on the matter.
‘We haven’t overlooked anything, have we?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You worry though, don’t you?’
‘About missing something important? Every time.’
He kept his eyes on the road and indicated to pull out past an SUV. She spoke more to herself than him. ‘I think we’re handling it properly but what we really need is some evidence to send us in the right direction.’
As Murray accelerated past the SUV, she looked out of her window, her eyes gazing on the faces of those inside. In the passenger seat was a girl, about the same age as Rainey and Audrey. Natalie pressed her lips tightly together and prayed the breakthrough would come soon.
Twenty-Nine
SATURDAY, 29 APRIL – MORNING
Natalie was awake before first light, head throbbing and mouth dry. It had been a long night. David had been up when she’d finally got through the door after eleven and had poured her a glass of red wine. Having not eaten dinner, the alcohol had taken hold quickly, and she’d made the mistake of pouring a second glass after David had stomped off to bed. Now she was paying the price.
She listened to the rhythm of his light breathing, envious he was dead to the world. He didn’t have trouble sleeping after an argument whereas she’d been awake half the night, chewing over all the finer points of their disagreement and the cold words spoken in anger that had stolen into her mind and heart.
David hadn’t been willing to discuss his conversation with Josh…
‘I have a right to know what was said and how you left it.’
‘If you’re so big on rights all of a sudden, then maybe you ought to be around more often for the kids.’
‘Fuck off, David. Fuck right off! If it hadn’t been for your gambling, I would be able to stay at home and know what my children were up to and to talk to them more often instead of agonising over what they’re going through and being powerless to assist because I’m involved in an investigation, miles away.’