Path of Needles

by Alison Littlewood

  She could hear more sirens now, in the distance. She knew they wouldn’t be long, and sure enough another police car rounded the bend and pulled up behind her own. There was another car behind that, unmarked: the cavalry. It was all too late for Chrissie Farrell. Soon the place would be crowded with CID, scene-of-crime officers, photographers, the coroner; and after that nothing, only an empty space where Chrissie had been, a small spot where the garbage was pressed a little flatter than the rest.

  Car doors opened and people stepped out. Some she recognised, most she didn’t. They were plain-clothes, CID. They would take over, she and Len would assist them, complete their statements, and that would be it. She had known, since she first arrived at the scene, she wouldn’t be on the case for long.

  She wondered who would break the news to Mrs Farrell, whether the woman would have to identify her child. Whether her blank eyes would fill with relief when she first saw that stark black hair.

  *

  Len Stockdale was already at the police station when Cate got back, just ahead of her once again. As she expected, CID had stepped in and taken over; now there were only their statements to complete. She was still relieved, although now she was away from everything she couldn’t help feeling something else she couldn’t quite identify, unless it was a trace of disappointment. So early in her career, and she’d just had a brush with what must be a major case. The way the body had been left – it wasn’t a straightforward death. Why do that to her hair, to her lips, her hands?

  Her hands.

  The girl’s hand had been lying at her side, curled in on itself, but Cate had still been able to see her fingers. It looked as if the nails had been ripped from them; they were caked in dried blood. She clenched her own hands into fists, a gesture less aggressive than protective.

  And of course it wasn’t only Chrissie’s hands – and she was thinking of the body as Chrissie, was more sure than ever that it had been the girl in the photograph, in spite of the hair – it was her feet as well. Someone had pulled out her nails, cut off her toe, done that to her hair and her lips, then put that crown on her head, perhaps in mockery.

  Cate closed her eyes. When she did, a quite different image of Chrissie came into her mind, one she hadn’t known was there. She pictured her as a young child with golden curls, home and safe, being cradled by her mother, who was reading to her from a book. Just a little girl, being read her bedtime story.

  She shook her head. She didn’t know why she’d thought of it, but it seemed important somehow.

  Of course it is, she thought. Chrissie is someone’s daughter. And her mother should never have to see what’s happened to her child.

  ‘It’s about vanity,’ came a voice at her shoulder.

  For the second time that day she jumped; it was Len. ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘It fits. The mirror, the crown, the hair dye. Pulling out her fingernails. It’s all about vanity, having a go at her for dressing herself up like that. Putting her out with the trash.’

  Cate frowned.

  ‘And the bottle. Sending back a perfume bottle to her mother, as if to say that’s all there was to her.’

  She turned and looked at him. ‘Vanity,’ she repeated.

  ‘It’s probably someone who’s been watching her, or maybe even a random thing – someone who hates young girls dressing up like that, thought he’d teach her a lesson. The way it’s posed – it’s a weird one. Not just someone who lost their temper and grabbed her throat; someone’s thought about this. Definitely premeditated. Probably an older bloke who can’t be doing with the way they do their hair and paint themselves and chatter, totter around in their high heels. Giggling.’ He paused. ‘Being social. Maybe this guy’s not social. He could be a loner, so he hates other folk who fit in, who’re—’

  ‘Alive,’ she breathed.

  ‘That’s it. And so he does this.’

  He didn’t say kills her, and Cate noted the way he avoided the word, liked him for it. She remembered the photograph she’d seen of Chrissie, the girl wearing the yellow dress, her mother the white. She couldn’t seem to separate it from the thing the smiling girl had been turned into: the staring eyes, the bloody hands. ‘The bastard tortured her,’ she said.

  ‘Doesn’t like them, does he? Prancing around in their fancy dresses and their make-up. That’ll be the way he sees it, I reckon.’

  There was something in Stocky’s voice, and she remembered his own daughter: she wondered if he was thinking of her now, imagined he probably was. Prancing around in their fancy dresses and their make-up. She could imagine him saying that about his own child, but she knew his voice would be resigned at worst – laced with bemusement, maybe, but there would be a hint of something else too: pride. The thought of anyone putting their hands on his child, punishing her for developing and growing into a woman, would light him up with rage; destroy him with grief.

  She wondered if anyone had spoken to Mrs Farrell yet about the body in the woods. She found herself hoping, for a moment, that they had not: Give her a little longer, she thought. Give her that, at least.

  Still, something was bothering her about what Stocky had said, something that wasn’t right, that didn’t ring true. She couldn’t think what it was. Cate closed her eyes and at once that image of Chrissie was waiting there, a little girl leaning over a book, her mother smiling. Mrs Farrell’s lips were moving over the words.

  Suddenly Cate knew why she had that image in her mind of a child and her bedtime story. She opened her mouth to tell Stocky and closed it again. It was ridiculous, nothing but her emotions getting in the way: he’d think she was a fool, and he’d be right. The crown, the hair, the mirror – Len had seen it at once, this was all about vanity, and if Cate had been thinking straight she’d have seen it for herself.

  Except the bottle that had been delivered to Mrs Farrell hadn’t really looked like a perfume bottle, had it? It must have been cheap perfume to come in such a large bottle. And the glass had been old, of such poor quality she had seen tiny bubbles caught within it, and those deep ridges, the contents barely showing through the thicker bands – it looked like something that might be found in an antiques shop. Glass with ridges like that – hadn’t it once denoted that the bottle held poison?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The detective superintendent from CID was dark, middle-height, middle-aged, and self-contained as a bullet. His natural expression seemed to be one of distrust or disdain, Cate wasn’t yet sure which. He wasn’t local, had been brought in from a neighbouring serious crime squad, and had brought a small army of detectives with him.

  She remembered Len’s words: It’s a weird one. Not just someone who lost their temper and grabbed her throat; someone’s thought about this. Definitely premeditated.

  CID were clearly taking a similar view to have brought so many and so fast. She imagined these briefings would be a regular occurrence until the culprit was caught. Around thirty were now seated in the incident room or standing at the back; Cate and Len, called in to this morning’s briefing to present their evidence, were standing.

  The detective superintendent stood and rapped the front desk – hard knuckles, Cate thought – and the room fell silent. He introduced himself as Heath, the senior investigating officer. He pointed out some of the team he’d brought with him and she caught DI Grainger, several detective sergeants, DCs Thacker, Laughlin, Paulson, Westerton, Judd; then she lost track of the unfamiliar faces. The whiteboard at Heath’s back was already marked with names, times, dates. Angie Farrell was on there, and the daughter, Chrissie Farrell.

  Any doubt was gone: the dead girl had been identified as Chrissie. Her mother had made a positive identification, and Cate winced at the thought; she could all too clearly imagine her catching a first glimpse of that black hair, assuring anyone within reach that no, that wasn’t her daughter, not her Chrissie: she didn’t have black hair, didn’t they know? Only to begin to see the girl as she had, recognising the shape of her face, her eyes, seeing h
er own features written upon it. And then what?

  Cate shook the thought away. The SIO was outlining what had happened when the 999 call had come in from Mrs Farrell, about her macabre gift. The body left at the fly-tipping site, as could have been expected, had been found to be missing the toe that had been wrapped and hand-delivered to her mother’s house.

  ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘And it wasn’t even Christmas.’ He waited for the muted laughter to subside before holding up a photograph. Cate recognised it as the one she’d obtained from Mrs Farrell’s house, but there was nothing odd about it now; there was only the girl in the yellow dress, her mother cut out of it. Frozen in time, Chrissie grinned out at them, showing her shining eyes, her white teeth.

  ‘She was fifteen years old,’ Heath said. He glared out across the room, and his gaze met Cate’s, just for a moment. ‘So she’s young, she’s pretty. She went missing following a school dance, at which she had been crowned the beauty queen. She expressed wishes to stay at a friend’s house’ – he consulted his notes – ‘Kirsty Gill. Early indications suggest that Chrissie never got there. There was an argument and Chrissie left the dance alone. Sometime after midnight she was abducted, tortured and dumped near Ferry Top Lane at a known fly-tipping location. She was discovered by passers-by shortly after her mother, Angela – Angie Farrell – had the box hand-delivered to her home, containing a bottle of blood, most likely her daughter’s, with the severed toe used as a stopper.’

  He paused and scanned the room. His eyes were oddly pale for one so dark, and Cate wondered how far the piercing glare they gave him had helped with his career.

  ‘We’re about to release some of this information to the press. But hear this: the detail about the girl’s toe is being withheld. So it doesn’t leave this room, understand? It’s important; it could help us nail the bastard.’ He glared once more until he appeared satisfied he had impressed this detail on everyone. Then he picked up some papers, ran through some details about how the girl had been found. He showed crime-scene photographs and pointed out the things that had been found with her: the crown, the mirror. It seemed Cate and PC Stockdale would be left with little further information to offer. When he got to the girl’s hands, though, he paused.

  ‘Her fingernails weren’t only torn out,’ he said, ‘there were traces of bleach on her hands, and some of it on her face. It could be that was done before he started on her nails, though it’s more likely it was done afterwards to cover up trace. If it was just afterwards – I don’t need to tell you what that would have felt like. Likely we’ve got a sadist on our hands as well as a weirdo.’

  Cate stared up at another of those crime-scene pictures. Hadn’t she noticed something about the texture of the girl’s skin? And it had been so pale.

  She would have screamed, she thought. If she was still alive, she would have screamed while he did it. Or at least as long as she could.

  Of course, the forensic pathologist should be able to ascertain whether the girl had been alive or dead when it happened. She found herself hoping she had already gone, that she hadn’t known anything about the things that had been done to her.

  Heath continued. He pointed out that the location of Chrissie Farrell’s death had yet to be identified. All they had was a dump site.

  A dump site, she thought. What had Stocky said? Putting her out with the trash. The murderer had had his fun somewhere else. Her face felt tight, the muscles tensing of their own accord, and she realised Heath was watching her. She let out her breath, forced herself to relax her expression. He looked away. Had he really been focused on her at all?

  ‘A partial fingerprint has been recovered from the mirror,’ he continued, ‘but it’s only a smear – unlikely to be good enough to match. The crown has the opposite problem, since it’s covered with them, one overlaid by the next. She probably passed it around for her friends to see it.’ And then he paused, and this time he did look at Cate, then at PC Stockdale. ‘We have no way of recovering tyre tracks from the mud at the side of the road because of the subsequent arrival of police vehicles. There is an additional possibility of interference with any footprints between the body and the road.’

  Cate’s breath froze. She did not dare look at Len. How could they have been so stupid? They had secured the immediate area, but not the route in or out. They had been too busy rushing in, seeing for themselves what had happened, trying to be first on the scene. Here first, Stocky had said, except they hadn’t been, had they? It was the killer who’d been there before them, perhaps leaving traces of his passing in the dirt, only for them to be trampled over by Stocky and her. Unless the killer had carried the body in through the trees, they might have destroyed all trace of him. She hadn’t even thought of it, had rushed in herself, wanting – no, needing – to see if it was Mrs Farrell’s child under the trees, abandoned there with her eyes wide open. Len had been blinded by his enthusiasm, she by her emotion. And she remembered something else he had said:

  Not what we’re used to seeing, is it, love?

  No. No, it wasn’t.

  Heath had already moved on, wasn’t looking at Cate any longer. He was outlining who would be questioned, which lines of enquiry followed up. They were beginning with the people who would have been last to see Mrs Farrell’s child, her friends from the dance, a boyfriend, maybe, anyone who might potentially have witnessed her abduction.

  ‘Assuming she was abducted,’ said Heath. ‘She may just have gone off with someone she knew, possibly another of her friends; but it’s also quite possible she was selected at random. The parcel was delivered to her mother’s house, it’s true, but whoever did this might have got the address out of the girl.’

  Cate tried to imagine a schoolchild doing this to Chrissie, taking pliers and pinching them around the girl’s fingernails, stretching them around her toe. She found she could not.

  ‘PC Corbin.’

  She looked up, startled. The SIO’s voice was suddenly loud; people were shifting in their chairs to look at her. She thought again of the way they’d rushed into the scene, found herself reddening. ‘PC Stockdale and – Corbin, I believe. Please be so good as to let us know if you have anything to add; any observations about your attendance at Angela Farrell’s property and indeed, at the dump site.’

  A few of the ranked detectives exchanged glances – and smirks – as the latter was mentioned. She swallowed. There was something she wanted to say, she just wasn’t sure she was capable, at this moment, of saying it. Then Stocky shifted at her side and cleared his throat, and the group’s eyes passed from her, and Cate took a deep breath.

  ‘PC Stockdale, sir,’ he said, needlessly. ‘Nothing to add about the scene: you’ve covered everything. But I have a theory about the case.’ He paused, coughed. Then he proceeded to outline what he’d said to Cate after they’d left the site, about the hair, the crown, the nails, the feet. That it was all about vanity: the mirror, the dye, the bottle. ‘It all fits, sir,’ he concluded, and there was silence as the room’s attention passed to Heath.

  The SIO stared at Stockdale as the silence stretched out, then gave a terse nod. ‘As I stated previously,’ he said, ‘we’re not ruling out the possibility that we’ve got a weirdo on our hands. If I find it necessary, we’ll have a professional profiler review the case.’ He placed the emphasis on the word ‘professional’. ‘Until then, we’re looking at the most obvious lines of enquiry.’

  He started to turn away, twisted his head back again, slowly, when Cate raised her hand.

  ‘Yes.’ Heath started straightening the notes on the table in front of him.

  ‘PC Corbin, sir.’ Cate hesitated, forced herself to speak louder. ‘Sir, the scene in the wood reminded me of something. It was the way Chrissie – the victim – had been posed. The way her hair had been cut, the crown and the mirror.’

  Heath was staring down at the desk, but Cate could feel Stocky’s gaze on her. She knew it wasn’t an encouraging look, could see from the corner of her eye that he did
not seem pleased. ‘I know it may sound odd, but anything we think of at this stage—’

  ‘Do continue,’ said Heath.

  ‘It reminds me of a fairy tale.’ Cate paused as a ripple passed around the room. Stupid: of course she had been stupid, should never have spoken out, should have listened to her own instincts. Stocky must have been right, it was about vanity, of course it was. Everything fitted. With her idea, so many things didn’t: the severed toe, the fingernails. Still, it was too late, she had no other choice than to press on. ‘Her hair was dyed black,’ she said, ‘and the mirror – it was old-fashioned, an old looking-glass. And the way she was left in the woods. It made me think of Snow White.’

  As soon as she said the words that image rose before her again, the way she’d been seeing Chrissie Farrell in her mind, a young child, her hair falling over her face as she smiled over a bedtime story. There had been a reason for it. She knew exactly which story Chrissie’s mother would have been reading to her child, if only she could hear them as well as see them. Suddenly she was sure it did fit. She didn’t understand how, but it felt right.

  Heath was already turning away. ‘Noted,’ he said. He swept up his notes without further comment and was gone, walking from the room without looking back.

  Cate turned to Stocky and found he was still staring at her. She could see the trace of disappointment in his eyes, and perhaps something else. ‘Fairy tales, Cate?’

  She gave a wry smile, shrugged. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time.’ She was relieved when his mouth twitched.

  ‘Okay, so we’re looking for a gang. Seven height-challenged fellows, one with a constant cold, another a little stupid, one decidedly miserable. Should be easy enough to spot.’

  Cate laughed, raised her hands and let them fall, and he subsided; or she thought he had. Instead, as they made to leave, he started up a low whistle, the chirpy refrain from the ‘Heigh-ho’ song. Cate tried to smile once more, hoping no one would hear him, that it wouldn’t catch on. Thankfully, he satisfied himself with chuckling as they left. And Cate told herself that he had been right, it was funny; but she could still see the contempt on Heath’s face as he stared at her across the room; feel the sting in his final dismissal.