Blood on the Marsh

by Peter Tickler

  ‘In Ania’s case, it’s not a crime.’ Holden said this firmly, though she felt slightly sick. ‘But if this girl is as young as I think, then it most certainly is.’

  ‘Should we go and pick Ania up, Guv?’ Wilson had gone rather pale. The pictures themselves were little more than titillating, and yet they hinted at something altogether darker.

  ‘Later. I think we’ve got a bit more to do here first. You, Wilson, see what else you can find on the laptop. I’ll stay with you. Fox and Lawson, I want you to go and ask around the neighbours. See if they can confirm or add anything to Mr Croft’s evidence. I’m especially interested in any visitors who may have come, especially at weekends, which is when Greenleaf seems to have spent most of his time here. Men, women and, of course, any girls.’

  It was just gone 1.15 p.m. when the four detectives arrived back at Sunnymede. The interviews of the locals had done little except underline the reliability of the beady-eyed Mr Croft. Greenleaf was rarely in the village during the week. He turned up almost without fail on a Friday evening, and stayed through until Sunday night, or occasionally Monday morning. He had a girlfriend, a Polish woman who, the publican of the local confirmed, was indeed called Ania. ‘Not sure how you spell it, mind you,’ he’d said. ‘She was quiet, but she had a nice smile. Sometimes, he’d bring friends in for a drink, or maybe even food on a Saturday night. And his mother sometimes for Sunday lunch. That was always without the girlfriend, mind you. I don’t suppose she would have approved, him screwing a woman half his age.’ And he had laughed. Fox had reported this conversation in detail, and with some relish, though Holden began to feel queasy as she listened. If Greenleaf’s predilections were for women half his age, and then he liked them to dress as if they were still at school, it didn’t seem at all funny to her.

  Once at Sunnymede, Holden ruthlessly suppressed the urge to smoke a cigarette. She had realized as they drove back that she hadn’t had one all day, and by the time they had pulled up on the gravel, the desire had turned into a craving. But there was too much to do. She needed to see Fran Sinclair for a start. If Fran did indeed fancy her, then Holden had no scruples about making the most of it. She found her not in her own office, but in what had been Greenleaf’s.

  ‘That was delicious coffee, this morning, Fran,’ she gushed. ‘Absolutely delicious. I hope it was fair trade, but if it wasn’t I’d rather not know. I’ll pretend it was.’

  ‘Actually, it was,’ Fran lied. It was a harmless lie, she reckoned. ‘From Nicaragua.’ That was true, at any rate. For a moment the two of them looked at each other. Fran wondered if possibly the detective fancied her, but decided even as she did so that Holden was way out of her league. Whatever else she had doubts about, she knew – had known from her teenage years – that she was attractive to neither male nor female.

  Holden’s thoughts were more focused: ‘Has Jim Wright been working here today?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘There really isn’t anything else we need him for. Roy is perfectly capable of coping on his own.’

  Holden nodded, taking in the implication that under Greenleaf’s charge Jim Wright’s presence had not been entirely necessary. Was this bitchiness or fact?

  ‘And is Ania Gorski working today?’

  Fran looked at her watch with a frown. ‘Yes, she finishes at four o’clock.’

  ‘Ah, well I really need to see her now. More questions, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ Not that Fran had much option if it hadn’t been fine. Ania might have had three patients with filthy nappies to be changed, but she doubted that would have made a difference to the inspector. ‘Would you like me to go and find her?’

  ‘Please! If you could send her along to the staff room.’

  ‘And would you like more coffee?’

  ‘Please! If it’s no trouble.’

  ‘No trouble at all, Inspector.’

  Back in the staff room, Wilson was perched over Greenleaf’s laptop. He had found little else of interest, and certainly not the evidence to suggest Greenleaf had been heavily into child pornography, but he wasn’t prepared to give up yet. Lawson was scanning her mobile, while Fox was looking at a copy of the Oxford Mail.

  ‘I need Jim Wright’s mobile number,’ Holden announced to them all.

  ‘I expect it’s on his invoices,’ Fox said immediately. ‘I’ll dig it out for you.’

  But when Fox dug out the number, and Holden called it, Jim Wright didn’t answer. Instead, the answering service kicked straight in. Either he was on a call already, or the phone was turned off or out of range. Holden left the briefest message, asking him to ring back, and hung up.

  ‘Right!’ she said. ‘You, Fox, and you, Lawson, take one of the cars and get round to the Wrights’ house. See if Jim is skulking there. If not, maybe Maureen will be able to enlighten us.’

  ‘So what do you think? About the guv?’

  Fox had barely started the car before Lawson asked the question. He said nothing as he reversed the car, and then moved forward down the drive.

  ‘In what sense?’ he asked cautiously as he reached the gateway onto Fitzroy Close.

  ‘Do you think she’s still got what it takes? After, you know, Karen.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘She looks stressed to me.’

  Fox said nothing. There was a private hire car half blocking the road, which he had to edge around with millimetres to spare. Only when he had done that, got to the end of Cumberland Road, and then turned left onto the Cowley Road did he explode. ‘Of course, she’s fucking stressed. Wouldn’t you be if you were in charge of an investigation with two deaths and Collins breathing down your neck? Maybe, Constable, sometimes you should think before you open your mouth.’ Fox was surprised at his own outburst. Often he would merely shake his head or make a face or just compose a tirade in his head, but somehow this time it had slipped out. He felt very defensive about his boss – he had, after all, seen her at her worst – and the fact that she was back leading her team was little short of a miracle in his book. But that wasn’t the sum of it. The fact was that Lawson could be a right pain in the backside. She was so full of herself, and so keen to make a good impression on Holden. It was intolerable that she should question her behind her back.

  They were silent for the rest of their journey. Only when Fox had brought the car to a halt in Lytton Road did Lawson speak, and then in a tone so respectful that Fox wondered for a moment if she wasn’t taking the piss. ‘How would you like us to play it, Sergeant?’

  ‘Nice and steady,’ he said, as he clambered out of the car. ‘Nice and steady, Constable.’

  Fox led the way to the house, and rang the doorbell. He didn’t expect Jim Wright to be in. If he was at home, he’d surely have his mobile turned on. But if he wasn’t, with a bit of luck Maureen would be. There was a noise from the hall, and then the tell-tale sound of the door being unlocked. Fox straightened himself. He had his opening gambit prepared, and a disarming smile on his face.

  ‘Hello,’ he said before the door was fully open.

  ‘Hello,’ said the girl.

  ‘Oh!’ He looked at her in disbelief. ‘Who are you?’ he said. Though in a sense he already knew who she was: it was her, the girl in the photos. The girl in the photos with Ania.

  ‘I’m Vickie,’ she replied brightly. ‘Is it Mum or Dad you’re looking for?

  At almost exactly the same moment that Vickie Wright opened the door to Fox and Lawson, Ania Gorski appeared at the door of the Sunnymede staff room. By then, Fran Sinclair had herself brought in the promised coffee and had dallied unnecessarily as she assured Holden that Ania was just coming. Indeed it was only when Ania arrived that Fran finally departed. ‘Give me a shout if you need anything,’ she said, again unnecessarily. Holden was more interested in Ania, who seemed even more nervous than on the two previous occasions. She ought to have been getting used to answering the police’s questions, but her eyes and the twitchiness of her hands suggested ot
herwise.

  ‘Please, sit down.’ Holden started with platitudes designed to put Ania at her ease. ‘Thank you for coming. Sorry for interrupting your day. Do you want something to drink?’ Ania accepted a glass of water, but Holden’s small talk soon ran dry.

  ‘We’ve found some pictures,’ she said.

  ‘Pictures?’ Ania spoke as if she had never come across the word before.

  ‘Photographs.’

  ‘Ah, I understand.’

  ‘Photographs of you.’ Holden pushed one across the table, one of Ania on her own, with pigtails and a grey smock dress.

  And only then did Ania did truly understand. Holden could see that from her face, which changed in an instant from blank incomprehension to patent alarm.

  ‘Did Paul Greenleaf take this photograph?’

  Ania said nothing.

  ‘It was on his laptop.’ Holden’s voice switched from gently persuasive to not so gently assertive. ‘Did he take this photograph of you?’

  Again, Ania didn’t speak, though she did nod.

  ‘You’re much younger than he is.’

  Again she nodded.

  ‘He liked you to dress up like a schoolgirl, did he? Is that how he got excited?’ She paused, but there was still silence. Holden raised her voice even louder. ‘You must answer me, Ania. This is not a game we are playing. If you do not cooperate with me, it will be very bad for you. Tell me, did Paul Greenleaf make you dress up as a schoolgirl?’

  Gorski gulped. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Sometimes he asked me. It was just a bit of fun.’

  ‘So he liked to have a bit of fun with the two of you did he?’ Holden pushed another photograph across the table, of her and the girl, both dressed as schoolgirls. ‘It’s just that the other girl looks like a real girl, maybe eleven or twelve.’

  Gorski shook her head, but Holden wasn’t satisfied. She leant forward and stabbed her finger down onto the second photograph.

  ‘Did Greenleaf have sexual relations with the girl?’

  Gorski shrieked. ‘No! He never touched her. I would never have let him. It was just a photograph. Nothing happened to her.’

  ‘How do I know that?’ Holden’s voice was raised too, but more controlled. ‘How do I know that nothing happened to her? I’ve only your word. How do I know that Paul Greenleaf didn’t abuse her? How do I know you didn’t help him?’

  ‘Ask her!’ Gorski was hysterical now. Her hands were clawing at her hair, and she had begun to rock backwards and forwards on her chair. ‘Ask her!’

  Holden’s mobile rang. She saw it was Fox, and answered it. It wouldn’t hurt to let the woman stew for a minute.

  By the time she had finished speaking to Fox, she knew who the girl in the photograph was, and she knew, too, that both Jim and Maureen Wright were off the radar. Maureen had gone, according to her daughter, to Reading on a shopping trip. But she didn’t know anything about her father. Or nothing that she was admitting anyway. Holden turned back towards Gorski.

  ‘The girl is Vickie Wright, isn’t she, Ania?’

  Gorski nodded.

  ‘When were the photos taken?’

  ‘On Saturday.’ She paused, and for a moment Holden thought that that was all she was going to say. But it was as if a log jam had been released, and all in a rush the words began to tumble forth. ‘Mr Greenleaf took me to the football game on Saturday. Someone had hired a box, someone grateful for the care that Sunnymede had given to his wife, so Mr Greenleaf asked me if I’d like to go with him. And he asked other people, including Jim Wright and his daughter Vickie. I had met her a few times when she visited her grandmother in Sunnymede. Afterwards, they came back to Charlton with us. And we had some food and some drink, and then Mr Greenleaf said it would be fun if we both dressed as if we were sisters, sisters at school. So we did. And he took some photographs. But that was all that happened. Vickie said she wasn’t feeling very well, so her father took her home. And that was all, I swear.’ The effort of getting all this said with barely a pause for breath had taken a toll on Ania. She began to pant like a sprinter after a race, and sweat dribbled down her forehead.

  But Holden was offering neither tea nor sympathy. ‘Did you kill Mr Greenleaf, Ania?’

  The question seemed to take her by surprise.

  ‘You asked me that last time.’ She was indignant, or was pretending to be. ‘And I tell you again. I did not kill him. Why would I kill him?’

  ‘Maybe because he was making you do things that you didn’t want to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean dressing up like a schoolgirl.’ She stabbed her finger at Gorski and raised her voice. ‘Sex games! Or maybe he was getting tired of you? Perhaps, instead, you were helping him find schoolgirls to have sex with?’ She repeated the stabbing movement of her finger. ‘I mean—’

  The rest of what Holden meant was drowned out by the scream that erupted from Ania Gorski’s throat. Holden had been half expecting it. She had pushed and pushed, in the hope that something would give. But what she hadn’t expected was what happened next.

  Ania Gorski flicked her wrist. The water in her half-empty glass showered across the table, into Holden’s face. ‘Hey!’ It was Holden who shouted now, caught completely by surprise. Ania flicked her wrist again, this time downwards, glancing the edge of the table so that the rim of the glass cracked off. Then, with a huge grunt of effort, she hurled herself forward and swung the makeshift weapon towards the detective inspector’s head. There was a squeal, like a piglet being slaughtered. Blood sprayed red, and Holden screamed for help.

  ‘What on earth has happened to you? You look frightful!’

  Susan Holden had tried to let herself into the flat quietly. Since her fall, her mother had conceded that it would be a good idea for her daughter to have a set of keys, though tonight Susan would rather have gone to her own home, bolted and chained the front door, and taken refuge in a bottle of wine, a microwave dinner, and some suitably undemanding tosh on the TV.

  ‘Thanks, Mother.’ It might, in other circumstances, have been a sarcastic reply, but after the shock of the incident, over two hours in accident and emergency, and seven stitches in her left cheek, Susan Holden was beyond sarcasm.

  ‘Have you caught him then? The killer? Did he do this to you?’

  ‘No.’ She walked across to the sideboard, and poured herself a slug of whisky. She swilled it round the bottom of the tumbler, took a sip, and turned to face her mother.

  Her mother, to her surprise, grinned. ‘We are a pair, aren’t we!’

  Her daughter grinned back. ‘The question is, who needs looking after most?’

  They both laughed.

  ‘I expect you’d like some supper.’

  Susan sat down at the table, opposite her mother, and took another sip. ‘In a minute.’ She needed to talk first. To unload her day.

  ‘There’s a plate made up for you in the fridge.’

  ‘You remember Ania, the Polish woman?’ She paused. Her mother nodded. ‘She did this. I was interviewing her, and she attacked me with her glass. I should have seen it coming.’

  ‘You were playing the bad cop, were you?’ Mrs Holden laughed.

  ‘Sort of.’ She frowned. ‘I was on my own, and I pressed a bit too hard.’

  Her mother got slowly to her feet. ‘You stay there. I need to keep moving. I’ll get your supper.’ But she made her way round the table, not directly towards the kitchen. Gently she put her hand on her daughter’s chin, and moved her head to the side so that she could get a better look. ‘What a shame!’ she said, and then kissed her on the forehead. ‘My poor little girl.’

  As her daughter ate her supper, Mrs Holden tried hard not to look at the stitches just above the jawline of her left cheek. Hopefully, in time, it would heal and the scar fade, and what nature couldn’t fix, then make-up would surely cover, but right now it was hard not to stare. So she asked her more about her day and listened as her daughter told her. She listened right to the end, for it w
as in the end of her working day, the interview with Ania Gorski, that she was, for obvious reasons, most interested.

  ‘So,’ she said, when Susan fell silent, ‘the question is why did she do it? I mean, quite apart from the obvious reason that you are prettier than she is and she was jealous!’

  Susan shrugged, and laid her knife and fork down on her plate. Telling the story, reliving the experience, had helped. What was it that had triggered Ania’s reaction? She could be a bully, she knew that. She wasn’t proud of it, but sometimes needs must. But the fact was, when she had asked Ania bluntly if she’d murdered Greenleaf, there had been no sign of her flipping. She had denied it, and asked why she would have. No, it was what she had said next. About dressing up as a schoolgirl to satisfy Greenleaf. That had pressed Ania’s buttons. She flushed, embarrassed to even remember what she had said to the woman next. She had accused her of helping Greenleaf find schoolgirls for sex. That was what had pushed Ania over the edge. And she couldn’t blame her for that.

  ‘You can tell me,’ her mother said.

  ‘No I can’t,’ she replied. That was a lie, of course, and yet it was also the truth. She just couldn’t tell her mother.

  She stood up, and felt a wave of exhaustion roll over her. ‘I’m off to bed,’ she said quietly, and this time it was she who moved round the table. She leant down and kissed her mother on the forehead. ‘I’m so glad you moved to Oxford. So glad.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Everything was dark. No, not dark. Black. Sightless. And there was a terrible pain in the back of his head. Not headache pain, but pain like someone had exploded a miniature bomb just behind his brain. There was pain in his back too, though this was nothing by comparison. And it was nothing compared to the panic that was rising though his whole being. Why the hell couldn’t he see? He tried to feel for his face, but his right arm was stuck under his body behind him. Hell, he was lying on his back, and he couldn’t lift himself up. At least his left arm could move. He felt for his face, and his fingers fastened onto something soft and woollen. It was his ruddy hat, and for some reason it was pulled down over his eyes. No wonder he couldn’t see. He ripped it off, and felt the sudden shock of cold air on his shaven head. That was better. He could see shapes now, different shades of dark and light. Clouds up above him, and to the side the darker shapes of trees.