by Ted Tayler
“This started after Harry died and Pat had left, I take it,” said Luke.
Mary nodded.
“Harry was sixty-nine,” said Mary, “which is quite an age when you smoke forty a day for fifty years. Pat left within a year of Harry's passing. That’s when I started having the girls here more often. Twice a week, on average.”
“The girls stayed on school nights too, did they?” asked Blessing.
“They have bingo somewhere every night of the week, love,” said Mary. “Vanessa was working full time, Monday to Friday, so I covered a weeknight, Vanessa had them on the weekend.”
“Were there many men that Debbie took home after a night out?” asked Luke.
“Nobody’s business but her own,” said Mary. “Both of my girls are still attractive women, who fell for blokes that walked out on them. Harry and I never interfered. It was their choice, and they had to make the best of it they could. If they both looked for comfort now and then, what business is it of the law?”
“Provided nothing happened to the girls, then the law never gets involved,” said Blessing. “Why was there confusion over who Stacey was staying with that Sunday night?”
“I was sure Debbie told me that our Vanessa had agreed to let Stacey stay,” said Mary. “Debbie was such a scatterbrain; she could have made a mistake. Perhaps Debbie thought she’d called Vanessa to fix it up, but it slipped her mind. I packed Stacey and Lucy off home that Sunday evening and watched TV until nine o’clock. Then I went to bed. It was too cold to sit here any longer.”
“Stacey staying at Vanessa’s alone was a departure from the usual arrangements, wasn’t it?” said Blessing.
“The girls always came here together for years,” said Mary. “They slept in what used to be their mother’s bedroom. Our two had separate single beds, but Harry put bunk beds in for Stacey and Lucy. Stacey slept on top, Lucy on the bottom. When Stacey started to develop, she felt self-conscious. Debbie agreed to let her stay at Vanessa’s alone.”
“When the girls stayed here, what did they do?” asked Blessing.
“They watched TV. I showed them how to knit and crochet, we baked cakes, played board games. We did the things kids of their age do with their grandmother.”
“I imagine that was changing too as Stacey grew older?” asked Blessing.
“Stacey received phone calls after she got her mobile phone on her thirteenth birthday,” said Mary. “The calls were from her girlfriends from school.”
“Did she get calls from boys too?” asked Blessing.
“Have you seen a photograph of Stacey?” asked Mary.
Blessing had seen the crime scene photos. As she scanned pictures on the Welsh dresser on her left, she could see one of Stacey and Lucy sat side by side in their school uniforms, taken not long before the murder.
“She was beautiful,” said Blessing, “Lucy too.”
“I notice there’s a photo on the dresser with Stacey and Lucy at the seaside. Could she swim?”
“Like a fish,” said Mary. “they both could. Debbie taught them.”
“Did Stacey mention any boy in particular?” asked Luke.
“She never told me who rang her, but when Stacey and her friends chatted, a few names cropped up more than once. Ryan and Wayne must have been popular lads with the girls.”
Luke made a note of the names.
“Did the girls ever ask after their father?” asked Blessing.
“For a while, after he left, Stacey would ask if it was something she did wrong. It was tough to explain to the poor child. She was only six. Both girls stopped asking where he’d gone after a year, and I never raised the subject. For a while, I think Lucy thought he’d died and gone to heaven, the same as Grampy. The events were so close together; Debbie seemed happy to let her roll them into one. Stacey was more aware of what had happened by the time she was thirteen.”
“Did she ever say she wanted to contact him?” asked Luke.
“Never,” said Mary.
“You can see lots of this street from that picture window, can’t you?” asked Luke.
He’d spotted Mary watching their every move outside.
“I don’t get out as much as I used to. My legs are in a terrible state. There’s not much on TV to interest me, not in the summer especially.”
“Were there ever any cars outside when Stacey and Lucy left here?”
“The street’s filled with them,” said Mary. “It’s a devil of a job to find a parking space.”
“I wondered whether an older boy, with a car, might have approached Stacey, arranged to meet her somewhere. The detectives back in 2015 weren’t sure why she went from Gorse Hill to Redpost Drive, or how she got there. Stacey might have caught a bus, but the police struggled to find a reason for the journey. Did Stacey know a boy, or someone older, from that part of town?”
“She could have known someone from school, I suppose,” said Mary. “They come from right across Swindon at the Academy. I don’t know about someone older. How would she meet them?”
“We understood that Stacey played truant from school in the weeks before she went missing,” said Luke. “Also, she wanted to spend less time with her little sister and more time mixing with her friends on the nearby estate.”
“You can’t watch them twenty-four hours a day, can you?” said Mary.
“Would you say that Stacey was a sensible girl,” said Blessing, “who knew right from wrong?”
“Debbie wasn’t the best role model for a daughter, although it pains me to admit it,” said Mary. “Vanessa and I did our best to keep Stacey on the right road. She knew better than to have a crafty fag behind the bike shed. I reminded her of what killed her Grampy. She saw the effect drinking had on her mother when she was still hanging out of her backside at six in the evening on a Sunday. Stacey would never smoke or drink. That only left two problems: drugs and boys. Both of which are everywhere. I warned her the best I could about drugs, although I never had to cope with the volume and variety they have today. I can’t swear she stayed away from them, but she showed none of the signs I read up on. Whenever she was around me, Stacey seemed a sensible kid with her entire life ahead of her. It was a man or boy that stole that future from her, but whether he was someone Stacey knew or a stranger, I don’t know.”
“We’ve taken up enough of your morning, Mary,” said Luke. “If we have further questions, may we come back?”
“Yes, dear,” said Mary. “It’s good to have someone here for a chat. Can you see yourselves out?”
“Is there anything I can get you before we leave, Mrs Bennett?” said Blessing. “I can make you a cup of tea and bring it through if you wish.”
“A cup of tea would be lovely,” said Mary. “You are a treasure. I’ve got Hobnobs in a tin by the kettle. Put one on the saucer for me if you would. Grab one for you both to eat in the car.”
Luke watched Blessing disappear to the kitchen.
“Can I use your bathroom, please, Mary?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Don’t forget to put the toilet seat back where you found it.”
Luke heard the whistle of the kettle as he went upstairs. He closed the bathroom door and stuck his head around the door to the smaller of the two bedrooms.
The bunk-beds were still there. The bedclothes were what Luke imagined appealed to young girls. A layer of dust on the bedside cabinet suggested this room was more of a shrine these days. Luke slid open the drawers in the cabinet to see whether anything remained.
A diary would have been a bonus, but someone had emptied the drawers. Luke left the bedroom and entered the bathroom to flush the toilet. As he trotted downstairs, Blessing emerged from the front room.
“Ready to go, Luke?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Thank you, Mary,” he called. “Goodbye.”
“Bye, love. Come again, won’t you?”
“Do you enjoy a Hobnob, Luke?” asked Blessing when they were back in the car.
“I d
o, but they’re better with a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll make you a cup when we get back to the office,” said Blessing.
“I wonder what the others have found out,” said Luke. “Mary’s tale doesn’t gel with what we thought we knew of Stacey, does it?”
“No,” said Blessing, “and Debbie Read had more going on in her life than we thought too.”
All three cars arrived back at the Old Police Station office within fifteen minutes of one another. Luke and Blessing were enjoying coffee and a biscuit when Alex and Lydia exited the lift. The four colleagues were comparing notes when Gus and Neil entered the office.
“That’s three sessions finished and at least half a dozen to go,” said Gus. “Neil, make us a coffee, please. We need to debrief this morning’s interviews and then set up meetings for this afternoon if possible.”
After Gus and Neil had their coffees on the desk in front of them, the team dived in.
Gus listened to Alex and Luke as they relayed the highlights of their meetings.
“So,” said Gus after they’d finished. “According to Vanessa, her sister offloaded the two girls as often as possible from a young age. Initially, Mary Bennett bore the brunt, but Vanessa got dragged into the parenting, mostly at weekends. Stacey believed it was her fault that her father walked out. Both women heard her say that, and both assured her it wasn’t her fault, it was just one of those things. Debbie asked Vanessa to lie when speaking to the police in the original investigation. Debbie didn’t want the police to learn how often the girls weren’t sleeping at home. Vanessa didn’t know that Stacey was staying with her that Sunday night. Mary was confused on the matter. That may be significant. Did Stacey set up a meeting with someone and hoped that her mother wouldn’t phone Mary or Vanessa to double-check the arrangements?”
“Mary didn’t know of any boyfriends Stacey could have planned to meet,” said Blessing.
“Mary also knew Debbie took a fair number of lovers after her husband left her, but Vanessa mentioned nothing about that,” said Alex.
“Vanessa gave you three names to confirm with the headteacher,” said Luke. “One of them could be the boyfriend or the killer. Maybe, they were the gang of lads Jack Sanders suspected got involved, and they acted together.”
“Jake Latimer said they couldn’t link anyone with the attack in Rushey Platt,” said Lydia. “If one of the three names Vanessa Nicholls gave you was a likely candidate for a sexual assault, it would have cropped up, surely?”
“What of this chap, Rod Maidment, guv?” asked Neil.
“We’ll speak to him, Neil,” said Gus. “Unless Vanessa was lying, there were only one or two occasions when the guy was still at her place after he slept with her. Maidment might not remember the girls and vice versa.”
“The original investigation got off to a poor start, didn’t it, guv?” said Blessing. “The desk sergeant didn’t take the missing person’s report seriously, and the shambles that followed stemmed from his half-hearted response.”
“We can’t change the past, Blessing. There are two things I need to learn from the interviews we’ve got ahead of us. Why did the murder file state that Stacey Read was street-smart when everything we’ve heard so far suggests the opposite? Why did she run in the direction that she did when her nearest escape route was directly behind her?”
“Blessing came up with another question, guv,” said Neil. “I remembered it this morning as we walked beside the canal. If the stab wounds weren’t fatal, why didn’t Stacey attempt to get out of the water?”
“Did anyone check whether Stacey could swim?” asked Gus.
“I asked Mary Bennett, guv,” said Blessing. “Debbie taught both girls to swim, and they were powerful swimmers.”
“I wondered why you asked that, Blessing,” said Luke. “I did a quick search of the girls’ bedroom to see whether Stacey had a diary, guv. There wasn’t one there.”
“I doubt that she would have left it lying around for someone to read,” said Lydia. “I know I wouldn’t. If a diary existed, her Gran has thrown it away by now.”
“Neil,” said Gus, “can you call Debbie Read and arrange for us to meet her at Gablecross later this afternoon or at ten in the morning? Lucy should be at home; schools broke up for the holidays last week.”
“Yes, guv,” said Neil. “Who did you have in mind for the responsible adult when we speak to Lucy?”
“Try to get hold of Christine Moseley,” said Gus. “If she hasn’t flown away on holiday already we could kill two birds with one stone. Debbie Read could hardly object to Ms Moseley taking her place.”
“A bit late to complain now, guv,” said Lydia. “Both her daughters spent more time with someone else than they did with their mother.”
Neil made the calls. Christine Moseley wasn’t available until the morning. Debbie needed to bring Lucy with her as her mother was too tired, so Luke scheduled the meetings for Friday.
CHAPTER 8
Friday, 20th July 2018
Suzie left the bungalow at eight o’clock and drove to London Road. They didn’t have any deep and meaningful conversations last night. Gus had arrived in Urchfont with his head filled with questions from the interviews he and the Crime Review Team carried out earlier in the day.
Gus wanted to spend an hour on the allotment trying to make sense of it all. Suzie elected to stay home, to cook a meal ready for when he reached home. When they got to bed at around eleven, Suzie was no nearer deciding when to broach the subject that had been occupying her mind since last weekend.
As he lay beside her, Gus recognised that the three conversations at Gablecross Police Station in the morning had to prove significant if they were ever to solve this three-year-old mystery.
Gus spotted Neil’s car as soon as the bonnet poked its head into the gateway. Gus opted to carry his jacket over his shoulder since the sun was already high in the sky. It could be a scorcher.
Neil had hardly completed his three-point-turn in the driveway when Gus opened the passenger door and sat inside.
“Blimey, Neil,” he said. “It’s baking in here. Don’t tell me your windows don’t work properly either.”
“I’ve got air-conditioning, guv,” said Neil, “but it’s on the blink. I’m cutting back on unnecessary expenses in anticipation of good news next week.”
“Were you expecting a pay rise, Neil?” asked Gus, and then the penny dropped.
“Melody might be expecting is that it? That would be fantastic news, Neil.”
“Thanks, guv. Don’t mention it to the others yet. Melody wants the doctor to confirm it after what happened last time. Let’s say we’re cautiously optimistic. Then we must get them over the finishing line.”
“The doctors will know how best to avoid, or at least ease, the problems Melody suffered during the first pregnancy, Neil. I’m sure you’ll follow their advice. Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word, even to Suzie.”
Gus and Neil signed in at Reception at Gablecross and followed the complicated signage to reach DI Francis’s office.
“Just one hurdle to get over before we can get cracking at ten o’clock,” said Gus.
He tapped on the office door, and Gareth Francis waved them inside.
“Good morning,” said Gareth. “Interview Room 3 is at the end of this corridor, the first room on the left. Jake Ingram tells me you’re taking a second look at the Stacey Read case.”
“We prefer to think of it as a fresh look, Gareth,” said Gus. “We’re speaking with Stacey’s mother, her younger sister, and the girls’ head teacher.”
“Do you mind if I watch from the viewing room next door?” asked Gareth Francis.
“Good to see you’re still willing to learn, Gareth,” said Gus. “Oh, well done for giving PCSO Travers the opportunity for advancement. A wise move, even if it means you could salute him one day.”
Gareth smiled. That unnerved Gus. The Welsh DI wasn’t famed for his sense of humour. Something else positive had rubbed of
f on him here in Shrivenham since moving from Devizes.
“Very droll, Gus. I thought it wise to offer support if the mother protested your decision to exclude her from Lucy’s interview. I could suggest that I sat with her at the back of the room. The presence of a senior officer should reassure her that everything was by the book.”
“What a generous offer, Gareth,” said Gus. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
“You had better get along the corridor,” said Gareth. “The desk sergeant will bring Mrs Read through any minute. If Ms Moseley gets delayed, I asked him if he could keep Lucy Read amused.”
Gus and Neil left the office. Gareth Francis shuffled several papers, grabbed a notebook and pen, then followed them to Interview Room 3. As he entered the viewing room, he saw the door open, and a uniformed officer ushered in Debbie Read.
“Good morning, Mrs Read,” said Gus. “Thank you for attending this informal conversation this morning. As our colleague DS Sherman told you, we’re re-visiting your daughter Stacey’s death.”
“Call me Debbie. It seems pointless to keep his name, but it’s too much hassle to get it changed.”
“As you wish, Debbie,” said Gus. “I’m a consultant with Wiltshire Police. My name is Freeman. DS Davis is with me this morning. Can we start by running through the events leading up to February 2015? We’ll try not to upset you unduly, but I’m sure you want to help us find out who was responsible for Stacey’s death.”
“Of course I do,” said Debbie. “I take most of the blame. I should have been a better mother.”
Neil studied the woman across the desk. She looked older than her thirty-eight years. Tragedy takes its toll in cruel and different ways.
Despite dark roots visible among her blonde curls, and a blouse and skirt that had suffered too many machine-wash cycles, Neil could see why men found Debbie attractive. Luke had mentioned something similar yesterday afternoon when they discussed Vanessa Nicholls’s testimony.