One Dead Witness hc-3

by Nick Oldham

  ‘ Yeah,’ he conceded, slightly embarrassed. ‘I suffer from the “red mist” syndrome occasionally. It gets me into trouble now and then.’

  ‘ He’s not worth it.’

  ‘ Hey, okay, nuff said.’ Henry held up his hands in surrender.

  Danny looked down at the floor and suddenly it came out. ‘I saw her face, Claire’s face, the expression on it,’ she choked, ‘and it’s only now I realise what it meant, and I made her go back home and it was obvious to anyone with half a brain she had good reason not to want to go back.’ A torrent of tears welled up and flooded over the edge. Her face rose pleadingly to Henry. He crossed to her. She slid off the couch and her arms went round him. ‘Her dad was sexually assaulting her. No wonder she went off the rails… and I didn’t spot it. Someone with my experience — I must be thick as a brick. And she even came in twice to see me, but didn’t have the courage to stay and speak. And what did I do? Nothing. I deserve to lose my job for this.’

  ‘ No.’ Henry held Danny at arm’s length so he could see her. ‘You cannot blame yourself for this. Every cop in the world would go bananas if they blamed themselves for things going wrong in other people’s lives.’

  She closed her eyes sadly and wiped away her tears with a flourish of both hands. ‘Yeah, right,’ she muttered. ‘What are we going to do about Joe Lilton?’

  ‘ Do you think he killed her?’

  Danny shook her head. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘ Let’s interview him with a solicitor, then bail him to come back here in a week. We’ll probably have a better picture of things by then. What about Mrs Lilton? Should we arrest her too?’

  ‘ I don’t think she will be involved, but I suppose we need to speak to her at some stage.’

  The door swished open. It was the Custody Sergeant.

  ‘ Henry, Danny, need to have a quick word.’

  The detectives exchanged a glance, both thinking the same thing: Joe Lilton had made a complaint of assault against Henry.

  Both were wrong.

  Myrna stirred. Her head was still resting on her forearms. She was stiff and aching. For a few moments she did not move, keeping her eyes closed and breathing in deeply through her nostrils. She sat up and stretched the feeling back into her blood-starved limbs. The crinkle of pins and needles was painful and pleasurable at the same time. She rolled her neck and winced as her back muscles protested.

  The clock on her desk told her that ninety minutes had passed since her last phone call to Karl Donaldson in London. Dawn had already revealed itself across Miami; soon the office cleaners would be in, followed shortly by the more enthusiastic workers amongst the staff.

  She rubbed her eyes, cleared her throat and glanced across to Tracey.

  ‘ Holy shit!’ were the first words Myrna uttered.

  The girl had disappeared.

  The custody officer pulled the custody record out of its plastic wallet.

  ‘ We don’t know who she is — she won’t tell us,’ he said to Danny and Henry, ‘but she’s about eleven or twelve; she’s as pissed as a rat, glued up to the eyeballs, as violent as any girl that age can be and basically a real bitch to deal with. I gave her a drink of tea which she promptly threw all over me. Luckily most of it missed; now she’s stripped herself stark naked and is prancing about in the buff in a juvenile detention room, having urinated and then shat in one corner. She’s now smeared excreta all over the walls.’ He raised his nose. ‘Can you smell it?’

  Henry inhaled. ‘Ahhh, yes, the smell of shite.’ He smiled empathetically at the Sergeant; Henry was pleased to announce that his spell as a custody officer had been brief but horrible, done a short time after his promotion to uniform Sergeant, somewhere in the dim, distant past. The role was unenviable, having to be a kind of unloved intermediary between the investigating officers and the prisoners. Always a no-win situation. It was a job Henry had quite happily left behind.

  ‘ So it’s a crap job you’ve got,’ said Henry. ‘What’s it got to do with me?’

  ‘ It’s probably all balls, I suppose, but she said she knew who killed Claire Lilton, but she wasn’t going to tell us — then she stuck two fingers up at me and lobbed a turd in my general direction. I’m getting too old for this,’ he whined, rubbing his neck. He was twenty-seven. ‘Just thought you’d like to know, that’s all. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘ Nothing lost having a word, is there?’ Danny said.

  Myrna shot out of her chair and crossed quickly to the restroom. Tracey was not there. She began a systematic walk through the offices of Kruger Investigations. Ten minutes later she returned to her office, pretty certain Tracey had gone. She sat down heavily and reached for the phone to call night security down at the front entrance. As her hand drew the receiver to her ear, she noticed her purse was open. With a curse playing on her lips, she grabbed the black bag and rummaged through it.

  Tracey had beaten her to it.

  She had been cleaned out.

  Juveniles are not detained in normal cells, but in juvenile detention rooms which, instead of cell doors, have thick wooden ones with toughened glass windows. There are no toilets in such rooms and every time the occupant wishes to pay a visit, they have to ring the bell. Henry hated dealing with kids. Give him a hardened professional criminal any day. Much simpler.

  He and Danny stood outside the DR and tried to peer through the layer of faeces the young lady had smeared over the window. They could just see her, sitting cross-legged on the floor, naked, singing at the top of her voice, then shouting obscenities between verses. They could smell her very well.

  The cell was covered in it and so was she.

  Danny turned to the custody Sergeant. ‘Why was she arrested anyway?’

  ‘ A nothing of a job really. Caught shoplifting in W H Smiths. The store detective chased her, she ran away down the Prom and she kicked off when she was collared. She gave the store detective a real shiner, I’m told. Took three bobbies to bring her in.’

  ‘ And we don’t know who she is, yet?’

  ‘ No.’

  ‘ Yes, we do,’ came a triumphant voice, interrupting the Sergeant’s reply. It was one of the arresting officers. ‘Been leafing through the Missing from Home reports, just in case — and voila!’ He flapped a message switch. ‘I think it’s this girl.’

  ‘ Well done,’ the Sergeant commented.

  ‘ What’s your plan of action?’ Danny asked.

  ‘ Hm… got to get her cleaned up before we do anything with her. Going to have to get a couple of policewomen into overalls, drag her out and dump her under a shower. This DR’ll have to be steam-cleaned now — little madam. Danny?’ He looked questioningly at the DS. ‘Don’t suppose you’d be interested in grabbing a pair of overalls and helping out?’ It was a fairly rhetorical question. ‘No, supposed not.’

  ‘ We’ll come back and speak to her when she’s clean — and sober,’ Henry said.

  The custody officer looked severely miffed at the problem. Bloody kids, he thought. Should be shot at birth.

  ‘ Just got off speaking to the States again. A woman named Myrna Rosza, remember? She was the one who originated the information on Charlie Gilbert.’

  ‘ Yeah, I remember.’ Henry had the phone cradled between his ear and shoulder, sipping a cup of tea, dunking a ginger biscuit at the same time, saturating it to the point of near-disintegration before dropping it skilfully into his open mouth. Gorgeous.

  ‘ Done anything with that yet?’

  ‘ No,’ he mumbled. ‘Filed for the moment. Too busy with other things.’ He reached for another biscuit and dunked it.

  Karl explained the phone call he’d had from Myrna. ‘Sounds very interesting,’ Henry commented. ‘Why does she want to speak to Danny Furness?’

  ‘ Dunno, but that was the gist of the message; she’s supposedly a witness to that murder and she’ll only talk to this Furness guy.’

  ‘ This Furness guy happens to be a girl, actually.’

  ‘
So be it.’ Donaldson took a breath. ‘But having said all that, there’s a bit of a sorry twist in the tail. The girl has now disappeared.’

  ‘ Oh, that’s handy. What do you reckon to the story anyway?’

  ‘ Myrna is ex-FBI, very bright, don’t take no shit, and wouldn’t bother me if she didn’t think it was worthwhile. I think the girl is genuine.’

  ‘ But she’s done a bunk?’

  ‘ As you say — done a bunk.’

  ‘ I’ll speak to Danny Furness for a start, Karl.’

  ‘ You know him — her?’

  ‘ Yes. I’ll see what she knows about this girl, if anything. Let us know if she turns up again; I don’t really see us getting too excited until then. At the same time I’ll liaise with the murder team over in Darwen and let them know what’s happening — oh shit! Sorry, Karl. Just had an accident here.’

  Henry had misjudged his timing and whilst in mid-air, on the journey from cup to lip, his ginger biscuit disintegrated all over his shirt and tie.

  There was, undeniably, the smell of shit in the air: disinfectant, cheap soap and shit.

  Danny’s nostrils dilated as she sat down opposite the girl. A woman from the social services sat next to the girl, a stern look on her face. Her nose twitched.

  The girl slumped in the plastic chair, a sneer slashed across her face, contempt oozing from every pore in her body. The white zoot suit was far too large for her, made her look stupid and vulnerable.

  She peered closely at the girl’s face and saw the redness around her nostrils and top lip, symptoms associated with glue-sniffing. Danny’s eyes looked into the girl’s which were wild, pupils still dilated. Danny speculated how far gone she was, whether it was recoverable or had her brain and vital organs been irreparably damaged by the fumes.

  Danny pitied her. She made a note to get the police surgeon to check her out.

  ‘ How’re you feeling?’

  Sullen, no response. Expected.

  ‘ You’ve cleaned up quite nicely.’

  She shook her head sadly as though this was all crap and she did not need to be here. Her eyes — dilated, watery — showed nothing but hatred for Danny.

  Danny inspected the faxes in front of her. A Missing from Home report from the police in Huddersfield told her the girl was called Grace Lawson, that she was eleven years old and had been missing from a children’s home for three months. It was a long time, but not unusual, particularly for kids who could fend for themselves.

  ‘ What’re you doing in Blackpool, Grace?’ Not that Danny needed an answer. Second to London, Blackpool, during summer months, was a Mecca for kids on the run. The girl’s eyes flickered.

  ‘ Yeah, that’s right. We know who you are.’

  She sighed disdainfully and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘ Cat got your tongue? Not talking will do you no good at all.’

  ‘ Oh, just fuck off, bitch.’

  Water off a duck’s back. ‘What are you doing here in Blackpool? How long have you been here and who have you been with?’

  Grace closed her eyes, opened them slowly. Defiance.

  ‘ Earlier today you were caught shoplifting in Smiths. You assaulted the store detective, then hit three police officers.’

  A smile now, pleasure and remembrance.

  ‘ You think it’s funny?’

  ‘ Yeah, very fuckin’ funny.’

  ‘ Is that because your brain’s rotted with glue? Does that make you see things differently? Can you see anything at all?’

  Grace leaned on the table. ‘I can see an old bitch whose mouth is opening and closing and spewing shite. That’s what I can see.’

  Danny grinned, thought, less of the ‘old’. ‘You’ve been on the run a long time,’ she said aloud. ‘Three months. How have you survived?’

  ‘ Easy — when you’ve got a cunt.’

  Danny flinched inwardly. Outwardly she did not blink or show shock. The social worker blanched, her tight lips parting in shock.

  ‘ And that’s how you’ve survived?’

  ‘ Hand jobs, blow jobs, fucks. Yeah, you name ‘em. The cash keeps rollin’ in.’

  ‘ You know what sexual intercourse is then?’

  Grace grunted in amusement.

  ‘ And shoplifting?’

  ‘ Bit of that, sure.’

  ‘ Who puts a roof over your head?’

  ‘ None of your business, Mrs Busybody, nosy-cow bitch,’ she spat, sat back and folded her arms.

  ‘ How do you know Claire Lilton?’

  ‘ Who?’ Her face curled up. Danny repeated the name. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘ You mentioned her name when you were brought in here.’

  ‘ I probably mentioned Robbie Williams too. But I don’t know him.’

  ‘ You’re a smartarse, aren’t you?’

  ‘ I could outwit you any day of the week.’

  Danny paused, leaned back and eyed Grace, not surprised by the responses she was getting. She’d had worse from eight-year-olds. There was quiet in the room and the slightly metallic hiss of the tape spools rotating could be heard.

  ‘ Let me tell you a story, Grace. It’s about a little girl very much like you.’

  ‘ I’m not little!’ She was affronted by the insinuation.

  ‘ Oh yes, you are. Little in every sense. Body, mind, brain, intellect. You only think you’re big. You talk big words. You do big girl things. But underneath you’re a little kid. A child. Nothing more than a child. I’ll bet you still have a teddy, don’t you?’

  Grace swallowed. She blushed.

  ‘ Do you hold it every night? I’ll bet you do… Anyway, I was telling you a story. Just a short story, because it’s about a little girl like you. Same age, same height, same braveness… and she went missing from home, but she didn’t last three months or even three days, because I found her strangled to death.’

  Grace was listening, riveted.

  ‘ Ever wonder what it’s like to be strangled? No air. Can’t breathe-’

  ‘ I say, is this really necessary?’ the social worker interrupted. Danny fired her a look which had the effect of clamping the woman’s mouth up. Grace was transfixed by Danny.

  ‘ Squirming, trying to. get away, being held dawn, throttled, maybe even more than one person doing it… screaming, a hand over your mouth and nose so you won’t make a noise and that rope tightening around your neck, tighter and tighter and your tongue grows in the back of your throat and your eyes bulge because they feel like they’re going to pop out…’

  ‘ Don’t!’ Grace screamed, covering her ears. She started to sob all the way up from her guts, almost retching, then she vomited all aver the table, over the tape deck, then jerking her head and covering the lap of the social worker. Danny saw it coming. She moved in time.

  Grace choked, bent double, head between her legs, spitting out the last of her stomach contents.

  Danny walked round the table and laid a hand on the back of her head. ‘There, there,’ she muttered softly. ‘Everything’ll be all right, Grace, but you need to tell me about yourself, don’t you? Then tell me about Claire Lilton, because you know about know who killed her, don’t you?’

  ‘ Yeah…’ she gasped.

  ‘ Who?’

  ‘ Charlie and Ollie.’

  Same old story, Danny thought whilst listening — in a different, vomit-free interview room — to Grace. Abused by a succession of ‘uncles’ (her mother’s lovers), social services become involved, goes into care from the age of seven; the short forays home result in more abuse; behaviour worsens, the homes become more secure, better supervised. Ends up in one, aged ten, abused by the staff and the older kids… it becomes part of a dark life, part of her day-to-day existence. She runs, returns, runs some more, but this time vows not to return. Blackpool sounds good. She’s been there on several day trips. Lots of life, sounds and people. And that’s where she ended up. Sleeping rough, cruising the arcades, stealing food… and then being spotted and watched, eventually a
pproached. A meal provided. A bath. Somewhere comfy to sleep. Some cash. Build up trust, something which didn’t take too long, and then she was hooked… and introduced to the man who had done her so much good; it was no surprise when his cock came out and it tasted like all the others had done, felt like all the others had done. And soon she was on the lookout for him — other vulnerables, mispers, day-trippers even — bring them in, make promises… but something horrible happened to one of them. Her name had been Claire. She didn’t want it, didn’t want the sex, not for anything. She fought and was subdued. Fought again, subdued even more and then she was dead.

  And now something else: Danny was being nice to her and getting something from Grace, something for nothing.

  Cleaned up, but smelling of sick, the social worker listened in silence.

  Danny coaxed, reassured, probed as she pulled out a tangled web of emotion, fear, hatred and a million other things because this was the first time Grace had ever talked. Danny had to deal with all the excess baggage. That was the way it had to be, like plaiting fog, as they say. Only then, when it had all been faced and talked through, could- the questions begin to flow, slowly at first, about Claire Lilton.

  And yes, Danny had to admit, she was not really interested in Grace’s story. All that was blind alleys. She wanted to hear about Claire Lilton.

  Grace talked for three hours.

  Every single operational operative from Kruger Investigations was out on the bricks searching for Tracey. Photos in hand, descending on as many likely places as they could think of.

  Myrna, meanwhile, was on to Mark Tapperman.

  Under pressure he refused to yield. ‘No, I cannot spare any of my officers to go looking for a reluctant witness who’s probably regaled you with the most bullshit you’ve ever heard, just for a bed for the night and the opportunity to steal from your purse. And it worked!’

  Myrna silently mouthed numerous cuss-words at him from her end of the phone.