‘D’you really think either the girl or her aunt would protect Stott if he had abused the girl?’
‘I’m saying,’ Griffiths said with mounting impatience, ‘that we don’t know. And buggering around the way we are doing, leaping to conclusions just because they suit us, won’t find out. We must adopt the proper procedures. Social Services must be told, because they’ve got the expertise to deal with child abuse, and Jenny Stott must be medically examined.’
‘No,’ McKenna said. ‘If we do that, we’ll set in motion exactly the train of events Stott and Prosser jumped through Gwen Stott’s hoops to avoid.’ He drew savagely on the cigarette. ‘Don’t you understand all this happened to protect the child in the first place?’
‘You’re letting your sensibilities interfere with your work, McKenna. Not to say cloud your judgement as well. A quick and simple medical examination is all that’s needed to find out if Jenny Stott is still a virgin.’
‘A quick and simple medical,’ McKenna said. ‘Is that how you see it? All over and done with in a few minutes, and no backlash? You wouldn’t mind, then,’ he went on, staring at the superintendent, ‘if one of your girls had a ‘quick and simple medical’ to see if she was virgo intacta?’ He turned to Jack. ‘Would you mind? Would you and Emma be happy for one of the twins to be subjected to that kind of interference in such circumstances? Medical examinations like these can be as much an abuse as the other, with equally dreadful consequences. Look at what happened in Cleveland and elsewhere. And you,’ he added, turning to face the superintendent, ‘don’t seem to know very much about girls. If a doctor is looking for evidence of abuse which occurred several years ago, all he can hope to find is a broken hymen. And many girls of Jenny’s age and younger will not have an intact hymen, simply because they take part in sports like gymnastics. And if she’s ever sat on a horse, the result will be the same.’
‘You like causing problems, don’t you?’ Griffiths asked.
‘I am simply trying to point out the likely outcome. We could put Jenny through a most dreadful trauma, for no valid reason, and be no wiser in the end … we could ruin her life, in fact, or what’s left to ruin after her mother’s finished with her. Jenny Stott is a person with rights, not simply part of a detective puzzle, or a potential social-work case. She categorically denies that her father or Prosser ever touched her. She has a right to be taken seriously.’
‘And where does that leave us?’
‘Where we were. Gwen Stott will be charged, and she will have every opportunity to state her case.’
‘I only hope you can make it stick,’ Griffiths said. ‘And I only hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces.’
‘If it does, it does. It’s a risk I’d much rather take.’
‘What about the furniture that went missing? The car? Maybe money, as well?’
‘We can’t prove theft, so there’s no point in trying.’
‘I see. Well, that just leaves us with the small matter of a murder, doesn’t it? Or maybe two,’ he said with some asperity. ‘And who d’you intend to charge with that?’
‘Who would you suggest?’
McKenna sat in his office, cloudy morning light spreading shadows around the room. Rain spattered against the window, the leaves of the overgrown ash tree gleamed bright and fresh, brushing against the glass as the wind moved through its branches.
Pernicious as a fatal sickness, Gwen Stott waited for him to unravel her mind, her vicious fantasies. Her daughter, he thought, would wait the rest of her life for forgiveness: not forgiveness for her mother, but for herself and the blood coursing through her own veins, carrying the same sickness. He wondered how Jenny would escape her inheritance, except in another world of fantasy as lethal as that her mother inhabited.
Romy Cheney’s diary lay unopened on the desk. Bound in embossed blue leather, he sensed it soiled, by the woman’s thin, probing fingers daubing vestiges of Jenny Stott’s lost innocence like snail trails on the binding, the thick creamy paper within. He pushed it aside, and walked to the window, staring through the branches of the ash tree, watching raindrops slide down leaves and fall to the ground like tears. He knew Jack was avoiding him, that Eifion Roberts would be wary as an antelope in the presence of a lion for a long time to come. He knew Denise had tried to contact him three times last night, that there was no reason to withhold the courtesy of responding. Soon, he knew, there would be no one left to want his company, and the prospect suited him very well.
‘I don’t intend to discuss McKenna,’ Owen Griffiths said. ‘He’s been ill, and he’s bound to be despondent about Denise. That’s not to say things can be allowed to go haywire indefinitely. I daresay he’s getting on your nerves as much as anyone’s, but people like him exact a price at the best of times. I expect you to heal the rift, not make it deeper, so just behave as if there’s nothing amiss. Pretend if needs be. McKenna’ll come round sooner or later. Now, how are you getting on with Mrs Stott? Dewi Prys calls her “gwenny Gwen”. Says it’s local argot for dowdy and dated and dull. Suits her down to the ground, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Not today, I wouldn’t, ‘Jack said. ‘You haven’t seen her. She’s got up to the nines in some posh new outfit, make-up plastered all over her face, perfume stinking out the interview room.’
‘What’s the perfume? Carnations?’
‘No. Probably what they call power perfume … By the way, I interviewed Jamie’s mother yesterday. She claims she knows nothing, says he’s been doing his own thing without consulting anyone since he was so high, and she doesn’t really want to know what he might’ve been up to because it will only lead to more grief for her one way or another.’
‘Sound like she’s relieved to have him off her hands. You wonder if some people have proper feelings, don’t you? Then again, folk can only take so much … What’s Mrs Stott got to say about Jamie?’
‘Nothing much. Says she was sorry for him, enough to help him out now and then with the odd five quid or so … she reckons he was getting his leg over Romy.’
‘What about him being suddenly dead?’
‘She arranged her face into one of those horrified looks and said he must’ve fallen foul of a criminal gang from England, like it said on the TV news. Then she did a bit of muttering about the wages of sin until her solicitor told her to shut up.’
‘What’s she got to say about her ladyfriend?’
‘She’s still swearing blind she didn’t know Romy was dead, but as she is, she reckons Christopher Stott and Trefor Prosser must be responsible.’
‘Those two sound like very handy scapegoats. Not that I’d want McKenna to hear me say that. Where was Gwen Stott yesterday afternoon?’
‘I haven’t asked her yet, though I daresay she’ll tell me she went for a walk or took the bus to B&Q to look at new wallpaper for the bedroom or went to a car boot sale or sat on the pier watching the boats, and had her fortune told at one of the booths by Gipsy Jane.’ Jack grinned. ‘I don’t think she’s going to say she was up by Dorabella Quarry putting out Jamie’s light. Do you?’
‘You never know, Jack. You might strike lucky for once in a blue moon.’ Griffiths paused, chewing at his pen. ‘I’m still in a real quandary over this abuse allegation. I’ve a nasty feeling in my guts we’re not handling it right … maybe even letting ourselves be led up somebody’s garden path. The problem is, I’ve an even nastier feeling we could make things worse. McKenna’s remarks about medical exams really hit home.’
‘That’s the harsh reality. It’s a no-win situation. If we don’t believe Jenny, and she’s telling the truth, we really screw up her life. If we believe her and she isn’t telling the truth, one child abuser at least gets off scot free.’
‘And do we place her at further risk if we don’t act? That’s what worries me. Should we bring in the social workers?’
‘She’s away from both her parents and Prosser for now. I think we should leave the sleeping dogs be until we know a little more about Gwen Stott. She’
s the lynch pin to all this, one way or another.’
Christopher Stott went home at noon, coming from the cells into dismal daylight blinking and red-eyed, a timid animal released from its prison. He refused the offer of a lift, and walked slowly towards the city centre, weaving a little from side to side as if his leg muscles, deprived of light and oxygen, had atrophied in the dingy cell.
‘You should be telling the chief inspector, Dr Roberts,’ Jack said into the telephone.
Eifion Roberts sniffed. ‘I’m telling you, aren’t I? You can tell McKenna.’
Cast now in the role of go-between, Jack sighed. ‘And what shall I tell him?’
‘Got a pen handy?’
‘Of course.’ Jack drew a notepad towards him and picked a yellow ballpen from the holder on his desk.
‘First of all, fingernail scrapings. Debris on clothing and skin, although not all the results are back yet. I found a deal of skin and blood and fibres under Jamie’s nails … quite long, his nails were, far too long for a bloke. Anyway, the skin and blood don’t belong to him.’
‘He was in a fight, was he?’
‘I suppose you could call it that….’
‘What else?’
‘Time of death as I told McKenna on Sunday night. Between noon and three in the afternoon of Sunday, probably nearer three.’
‘D’you know how he died yet?’
Dr Roberts ignored the question. ‘There’s faint bruising on his throat and face, and more pronounced marks, like somebody thumped him, on his ribs and chest. And grazes on his shins … and a few marks on his wrists.’
‘Maybe somebody kicked him.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Cause of death?’ Jack waited, pen poised.
‘There are all the signs of chronic alcohol abuse in his system, and the residue of some other substance, possibly crack.’
‘And that killed him?’
‘No,’ Dr Roberts said. ‘No, that didn’t kill him. You might say he met his match. Somebody sat on his chest and suffocated him to death.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘There’s considerable literature on it in our trade, Jack. Used to be called “Burking”, because it was favoured by Burke and Hare so that corpses they sold to the medics weren’t too battered.’
‘I see.’ Jack wrote down “Burking” on his pad, and “suffocation” in brackets alongside. ‘What about the fight he had?’
‘He fought with the Devil, didn’t he?’
‘Oh, come on! That’s more McKenna’s line of talk.’
‘I’m not talking about Lucifer. I’m talking about the devil who killed him. Because, believe me, whoever killed Jamie Thief is a fiend, someone who really enjoys the job of killing.’
McKenna felt remote from the world, as devoid of the capacity to feel as Jamie Thief, who lay on a mortuary slab with a cloth over his face and genitals, a huge scar stitching its way from pelvis to throat and from sternum to shoulder, where Eifion Roberts has stuck in his scalpel and turned the boy inside out. He wondered idly what Eifion Roberts had used to stuff up the gap where Jamie’s heart had pulsed and throbbed, the heart Roberts had weighed in his hands.
‘The house to house in the quarry village hasn’t come up with anything useful,’ Jack said. ‘We haven’t heard from all the bus drivers on Sunday afternoon shift yet, or all the taxi people. And as far as we can make out, sir, it seems most of Bangor knew Jamie was in the caravan. Apart from us, of course.’ His voice sounded bitter, McKenna thought. ‘We seem to be the last to find out anything in this Godforsaken place.’
‘Jamie’s caravan was a rat hole.’
‘Suited him then, didn’t it?’
‘How big would this person need to be? The person who sat on him and crushed the life out? How heavy? How strong? Were his hands tied?’
‘Dr Roberts didn’t say there were any marks. He reckons whoever killed him really enjoyed it. I find that very hard to believe, actually. Nobody can walk away from a killing without knowing they’ve broken the last taboo.’
‘Not necessarily. Jamie’s killer probably didn’t feel anything at all except an overwhelming need to shut his mouth, and a gigantic sense of relief after the job was done. Anyway, you wouldn’t know. You’re not a killer.’ He turned to take a new pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. ‘Gwen Stott won’t be killing anyone else for a while. That’s one consolation.’
‘Sure it was her, are you? What about the villains from over the border? The drug pushers, the suppliers?’
‘What about them? He was out of their league. He was just the tip of the big rat’s tail.’
‘I still think you should be careful not to twist the facts to suit your theory.’
‘Do you? I don’t think there’s any danger of that. I don’t have any bloody facts to twist.’
McKenna went home to feed the cat, who waited for him behind the front door, wrapping her body around his ankles as he crossed the threshold, clawing his trouser leg to be picked up. He sat in the kitchen while she ate, then in front of the parlour fire, a mug of tea at his side, the cat draped across his knees, and fell asleep, waking to darkness dancing with fireglow, and the shrill bleep of the telephone. Listening to the voice of the custody officer, he thought of Jamie, who had walked in his dream.
‘I think we should get a doctor to see your remand prisoner, sir.’
‘Why? Is Mrs Stott ill?’
‘No, sir. She’s got some marks on her, and the lass on duty is getting worried in case one of us gets accused of knocking Mrs Stott about.’
‘Mr Tuttle said nothing about marks.’
‘He wouldn’t’ve seen them. She was covered in make-up until she had a shower a while ago. Took a fair bit of scrubbing off, I’m told.’
Waiting in his office for Gwen Stott to be returned from the hospital where she had gone for examination, McKenna looked through the documentation derived by Dewi Prys from the floppy disks which arrived in the morning post from Leeds: sheet upon sheet of paper, covered in figures and notations, too jumbled, too arcane for him to decipher.
Eifion Roberts walked into the room at a quarter to ten, nodded to McKenna, and sat down. ‘Went up to your house first. Thought you’d be at home by now.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you want to see me?’
‘Not to look at your pretty face! Or listen to any more of your soul-searching drivel. I want to give you some information, McKenna,’ Dr Roberts said, his tone measured. ‘In my capacity as pathologist.’
‘Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow? I’d hate to put you to any trouble.’
‘I was thinking about you last night when I couldn’t get to sleep, and I came to the conclusion you should buy a hair shirt and a scourge. I expect the parish priest has a mail-order catalogue of suchlike for flagellating the erring Papist spirit. Your church teaches masochism along with the catechism, doesn’t it?’
‘Why don’t you say what you came for, then bugger off back to the mortuary. You can’t do much harm there.’
‘Shunning me because I’ve seen too many of your unguarded moments won’t make the slightest difference. You need to take yourself in hand, change your ways of looking at the world. Nobody can do it for you, which is why social workers farting around with the likes of Jamie Thief never do an ounce of good. You won’t survive if you don’t, Michael. Not in this world, anyway, and none of us know if there’s another one, do we?’
‘Jamie will, by now.’
‘He will, won’t he?’ the pathologist agreed. ‘I came to tell you who sent him there.’
‘I know.’
‘She’s covered in scratches: face, arms, the side of her neck … and several bruises. All around two days old.’
‘She was plastered with make-up when we brought her in.’
‘Jamie fought hard for his life, however awful it was.’
‘And he lost, didn’t he?’
The pathologist stood up, stretching his arms.
‘Our Gwendolen refused to give tissue and blood samples, and that dickhead of a police surgeon nearly wet himself when I told him to take some blood anyway.’
‘You know we’d never get away with that. We’ll get court orders in the morning.’
‘Bear in mind, Michael, that Gwen Stott’s no fool, for all she’s a moral imbecile.’
‘You think she’ll try to plead diminished responsibility?’
Eifion Roberts shrugged. ‘Mad or bad, she gets locked up for a good long time. Young Jenny’s got to live with the fact her mother killed, and it might go easier on her to believe Gwen wasn’t entirely in her right mind.’ He sighed. ‘If the lassie can believe that … She knows what Gwen’s capable of better then any of us ever will.’
Chapter 35
Dewi Prys put his coffee mug on the edge of McKenna’s desk. ‘That just leaves us with our Romy, then.’
‘What does?’ Jack asked.
‘We know who killed Jamie,’ Dewi said. ‘So it’s just a case of finding out who killed the other one.’
‘We don’t know, Prys!’ Jack snapped. ‘We haven’t proved it in a court of law.’
‘Only a matter of time,’ Dewi concluded. ‘Isn’t it, sir?’ he asked McKenna.
‘Not necessarily,’ McKenna said. ‘Far be it from me to twist a few scratches and bruises into evidence to fit a theory. Mrs Stott is telling us she had yet another fight with Mr Stott, who every so often, she claims, throws the sort of screaming tantrum highly inappropriate for an adult man, and slaps her around when he can’t get his own way. She was merely defending herself.’
‘Stott was in custody long before she got scratched and bruised,’ Jack said, holding his temper against McKenna’s jibes and Dewi Prys’s arrogance.
‘We don’t know that,’ McKenna said. ‘We only have an opinion about the age of the injuries, and it’s an inexpert opinion. Gwen Stott must be properly examined today by two independent doctors for an expert opinion which will stand up as evidence.’
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