by John Harvey
'Think he'll come clean?' Straley asked.
'I think it's time he did.'
Back in the room, Pierce kept his eyes firmly fixed on the floor and it was Matthew Oliver who spoke first.
'My client regrets that due to the emotional state he has been in following the disappearance of his former partner's daughter, he has not been able to provide you with all the facts you require. He hopes that once these are made known and the situation resolved, he will be able to put this whole unfortunate episode behind him and you and your colleagues will be able to devote all of your attentions to where they are most needed, recovering this poor missing girl.'
Oliver leaned back and Will didn't know whether he was supposed to applaud. 'Nice speech, Matthew. And mostly without notes. Now can we get down to it?'
Pierce started talking without looking up. 'It was a Saturday. Saturday morning. Beatrice had gone into Ely with her friend, Sasha, and her mother. I think that's what her name was. Sasha. They did some shopping, bits and pieces in the market, then they went to the bookshop and after that they went on to the café near the cathedral and sat outside. It was a nice day.'
He was looking at Will now, rather at a space between where Will and Jim Straley were sitting, his voice low, low key, as if telling something that had happened to somebody else.
'They stayed there for quite a while. The girls had hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream. And there was a dog, someone at the next table had a dog. Silly little dog, barking and yapping, tied up, and they loved it. Both girls loved it. Patting and stroking and laughing when it got wound up in its own lead. Finally the mum had had enough. "Come on," she said. "We're going." And she hurried them off.
'That was when Beatrice forgot her jumper, top, whatever you call it. She'd taken it off and put it on the back of her chair. I waited to see if they were going to come back for it and when they didn't I just went over and picked it up. I'm not even sure what for. I suppose I thought I might send it back in the post with a little note or even take it round. Give it to her the next time I saw her out with her friend. But I didn't. Didn't do any of those things. I kept it.'
He focused on Will now, on Will directly, and his eyes were luminous and large.
'It's pathetic, isn't it? That's what you think. Pathetic and perhaps a little sad. But that's all it is. You read about it, there are instances, lots of them, it's common. People in my situation. Who've lost children. Transference, that's what it's called. They transfer their feelings on to someone else. And with me, I suppose it was Beatrice.'
'Tell me about the jumper,' Will said.
'Can I have a drink of something? Some water?'
'Once you've told me.'
The solicitor moved as if to intervene and a quick look from Will settled him back down.
'All right,' Pierce said, blinking. 'When I ... when it became obvious I wasn't going to send it back—it had been too long—I thought, I'll burn it, but then I couldn't do that, so I just bundled it up with a lot of other old things, stuffed it into the corner of the henhouse and forgot about it.'
'You forgot?'
'Yes. More or less, yes.'
'But when you read about Beatrice going missing, saw it on the television, whatever, surely you realised the police would come out here, wanting to talk to you and that it might get found?'
'No, why should I? It's not as if I'm involved.'
'You sent those pictures. You involved yourself.'
'I got someone to send them for me.'
'At your instigation.'
'Yes.'
'Who is this person?'
'A friend.'
'A friend you met through the Internet?'
'Yes.'
'And his name?'
'I don't know. His real name, I mean. He calls himself Don, but that's not his real name, almost certainly not. Privacy, you see, the beauty of sites like that, you can say what you really feel without anyone knowing who you are.'
'So where does he live? This Don?'
'I don't know. It could be anywhere. Another country. Just down the road.'
Will pushed a pad of paper and a pen towards him. 'The details, write them down.'
'They're on my computer, all of them.'
'Write them down.'
Pierce looked round at his solicitor, who nodded, and began to write.
Will and Matthew Oliver were standing outside, on the edge of the car park at the rear of the building, Oliver smoking a cigarette. A faint rain had started to fall and was misting over the roofs of the cars.
'You'll release my client. Now that he's been fully cooperative.'
'On the contrary, I shall be seeking authorisation to hold him for a further twelve hours.'
'On what grounds?'
'That I have reason to believe he has either had some involvement in Beatrice Lawson's disappearance or has some knowledge of who was.'
'It doesn't hold up. Doesn't wash.'
'Doesn't it? By his own admission, he stalked her for weeks. Months. Surreptitiously took pictures. Stole an article of her clothing. And you expect us to believe it was just some innocent bit of—what did he call it?—transference? Something he's got over and put behind him? Come on, Matthew, you know better than that. And now let's get in out of this rain.'
Due to a multiple pile-up on the nearby A46 between Cambridge and Newmarket—two families, including small children, having to be cut free from their cars, and one virtual decapitation—the press conference was less well attended than of late. If there were no positive new developments soon, this was how it would be: the story relegated to the bottom of page five, a brief item on the television news, squeezed between the comic human interest and the sport.
Will made his announcement as concisely as possible and waited for questions.
Since the police had seen fit to request an extra period of time for questioning, did that mean charges were imminent?
No, it did not.
Surely it was in the public interest to release the name of the man they were holding?
No, it was not.
Did the fact that they had a suspect in relation to young Beatrice's disappearance mean that they were no longer looking for Mitchell Roberts with the same urgency?
Absolutely not. While he remained at large, Roberts still posed a serious threat to the community.
But there's no indication that he is involved in the disappearance of Beatrice Lawson?
Not as yet.
Will was briskly to his feet, the press officer alongside him raising her hands to make clear that the conference was over.
62
Helen watched Will's press conference on the small set in her hotel room, the indoor aerial reducing him to a barely recognisable blur. She had spoken to him twice during the course of the day: once to get the name of his contact at Forensic Science Services in Birmingham, the second time for a more detailed update of the investigation into Beatrice Lawson's disappearance than she would get from the television news. The initial euphoria the team must have felt when the article of Beatrice's clothing was found seemed to have quickly dissipated; had she been wearing the garment at the time she went missing, were there any evidence to suggest she had it with her that evening, the discovery would be more important than it had at first seemed. On balance, however, Simon Pierce's version of how the top came to be in his possession was the most likely. A somewhat sad, she supposed, confused man's souvenir.
Try as he might, and tantalising as it was, Will had failed to make any more of the chance meeting between Pierce and Mitchell Roberts, and although they were continuing to question him and check his contacts, Helen knew that, unless some new piece of evidence were found, at the end of the thirty-six hours Pierce would be released.
She poured herself a small measure of Scotch and diluted it well with water. She'd agreed to meet Cordon for a drink later—a drink and maybe something to eat—and she didn't want to get started too early. The bulk of the day they'd spent, the pair o
f them, first assembling a case for sending Heather Pierce's clothing off to Birmingham, then arguing it with Cordon's superiors. Only when that had been grudgingly agreed did Helen pursue the name Will had given her of the woman he knew at FSS.
Initially, it had been like chipping away at granite: surely she understood ... like to help but ... adherence to policy ... dangerous precedent. In the end, Helen had begged Will to find the time and call her himself. What their relationship had been, she didn't know, except that it went back some time; and if he had made it work for him once before, maybe he could do so again.
'Okay,' Will said, when he rang Helen back to report. 'She says she'll do what she can.'
'That's it?'
'If she can find a way of slipping it up the list, she will.'
'Which means what, in terms of time?'
'Way things are now, weeks instead of months. Two, three weeks at the very best. She can't promise any more than that.'
'Christ, Will, what did you do? Lead her on and then not follow through?'
Recalling the conversation, Helen laughed again and headed for the shower.
They went to a pub down by the harbour, locals for the most part, mixed with a sprinkling of visitors, Cordon stopping to speak to several people at the bar before carrying their drinks across. Tribute ale in tall glasses. Pints.
'Is there anywhere people don't know who you are?'
'This town? Likely not.'
'Is that why you live somewhere else?'
'Newlyn? Stretch a leg, you kick someone else's backside. No place to hide there.'
'Doesn't that get to you?'
'Used to it, I suppose.'
'Must make your job more difficult.'
'Sometimes it does. Sometimes the opposite. People get to know who they can trust.'
'And they trust you?'
'Some do.'
Helen took a long drink from her glass. 'I'd hate it, all this small-town stuff, everyone knowing your business, knowing who you are. Cambridge is just big enough, most times you can stay under the radar.'
'Misbehave in private.'
'If you like.'
A man in a dark blue roll-neck sweater and blue trousers—fisherman's wear, to Helen's mind—came over and, with a nod in her direction, leaned towards Cordon and began a hushed conversation from which she heard no more than the odd word.
Cordon sat giving the man his full attention, his face in profile from where Helen was sitting, angular cheekbones in a lean face, brown eyes flecked with—what was it?—green; a nose that had been broken, at least once she thought, when he was younger.
What was he now? Early fifties? Thirty years in, he could have retired. And done what?
The man who'd been talking squeezed Cordon's shoulder and walked off, back to the bar.
'What was all that about?' Helen asked.
A smile came slow to Cordon's face. 'The price of fish.'
She didn't know whether to believe him or not. Probably not.
Somewhat to Helen's consternation, Cordon suggested an Indian restaurant a short walk away from where they were, along a narrow side street leading off the promenade. But the interior was happily devoid of flock wallpaper, the service attentive without being smarmy, and the food—well, the food was far better than she had anticipated, the tandoori king prawns in particular. The wine list even offered up a more than decent Côtes du Rhône that didn't cost the earth.
'So,' Cordon said, tearing off a piece of naan bread and using it to mop up some of the pepper and coriander sauce from his plate. 'Do you think you'll bother to go and see Alan Efford or not?'
They had discussed this earlier, the possibility of Helen changing her ticket and breaking her journey in London, taking the opportunity to talk to Efford about the events, as he remembered them, of thirteen years before.
'I think I might.'
'He's not going to tell you anything much you don't know now you've read through the transcripts.'
'Probably not.'
She poured a little more wine into both their glasses; no point in leaving it to be thrown away.
'I never got the impression,' Helen said, 'that you fancied him for it.'
'Efford? No, not really. We considered him, of course—bound to have done. But aside from anything else, when it came to opportunity there wasn't a great deal.'
'According to what Gibbens had to say, there was at least one person in the area where the girls went missing. He heard them shouting.'
'I know. Efford admits to being there, going out along the path when it was first clear what had happened. That the lad had come back without them.'
'How did he feel about that?'
'Lee? Like a dog wandering round with his head down and his tail between his legs. Guilty as buggery, and no mistake. Leaving them out there on their own the way he did.'
Cordon said yes to banana fritters and ice cream and Helen abstained.
'You want a brandy or anything?' he asked.
'God, no!'
Back outside, the air struck cold but clean and an almost perfect half-moon sat high above the bay. There were couples sitting huddled together on the benches spaced out the length of the promenade; further along, a man in silhouette, the glow of his cigarette small and bright, stood careful guard over a pair of fishing lines cast out to sea.
'Come on,' Cordon said. 'It's a fine night. Let's walk.'
'Where to?'
A few hundred metres on, the path dropped down to run close along the shoreline, virtually the only sound now the soft rattle of pebbles as they rolled rhythmically back, released by the incoming tide. The lights of Newlyn curved ahead, rising up, one above the other, to the point where land and sky invisibly met.
Helen paused to light a cigarette.
When she offered one to Cordon, he shook his head. 'Not far now,' he said.
The pub was long and low and close to the sea wall, plenty of cars parked outside, an orange glow from the windows, music tipping out.
'You do like a bit of jazz?' Cordon said.
'Not especially.'
'You'll like this.'
She followed him through the door. At the far end of the narrow room, two musicians were just visible through a crowd of people, guitar and saxophone, the number they were playing winding to an end. As it finished, a couple sitting near the side wall got up to leave and Cordon commandeered their seats.
'What would you like?' he asked, nodding towards the bar.
'I'll get these. What'll you have?'
'Another pint'd be fine.'
Helen ordered that and, after a moment's thought, a large whisky for herself. In for a penny...
The duo were playing a ballad now, one of those old songs that had been around forever, the tone of the saxophone sinuous and warm.
'Your local?' Helen asked, looking round.
'More or less.'
There'd been the usual nods in his direction as they moved through the room, the occasional hand raised in greeting.
'The landlord,' Cordon said, 'that's him playing the guitar. Feller with him, the sax, comes down from London. Regular. Good, don't you think?'
Helen didn't have a clue. She didn't even know what kind of saxophone it was. Tenor? Alto? Still, she supposed it was pleasant enough.
'Last time he played here,' Cordon said, 'I was with my son. Over from Australia.'
'That's where he lives?'
'Lives now. Been all over. His mother and I split up before he went to university and he's been pretty much on the move ever since. South America, southern Africa, now Down Under. All a bloody long way away.'
When she asked him more, he replied haltingly, switching the subject as soon as he could, asking her about Will and what he was like to work with.
That tune finished and another started.
Cordon's turn to go to the bar.
After the last number, the landlord came over and lightly punched Cordon's shoulder, shook Helen's hand.
'Something wrong here
,' the landlord said with a wink. 'Too good-looking for him by half.'
While Cordon stopped for a brief word with the sax player, Helen stepped outside for a cigarette. When she looked up, the sky was brimmed with stars.
'There's usually a taxi just over the bridge,' Cordon said, emerging. 'Get you back to the hotel.' The light from the pub doorway favoured the contours of his face.
'How about some coffee first,' Helen said. 'You think you could manage that?'
The dog met them at the door, tail wagging energetically as it raised its head towards Cordon's hand.
'Let me just put the coffee on,' he said, 'then I'll walk her round the block.'
'Show me where it is,' Helen said. 'I'm sure I can manage.'
She looked around the interior while he was gone: CDs alongside the stereo, alphabetically arranged; a small stack of paperback books on the floor beside one of the chairs; a pile of clothes, folded at the end of the neatly made bed; a few framed photographs on the wall. A single plate and bowl left on the drainer to dry. What the hell am I doing? Helen asked herself. The coffee was just starting to bubble as Cordon and the dog returned.
'You're pretty tidy for a man living alone.'
'Place this small, hard not to be.' He ran fresh water into the dog's bowl.
'How d'you like it? Being on your own?'
'You get used to it. You want milk in this?'
'Uh-uh.'
'Sugar?'
'One.'
'How about you? You living with someone?'
'Not so that I've noticed.'
'How come?'
'Last time I tried it was a fiasco. Six months with me and he buggered off to Canada. Joined the Mounted Police.' She laughed. 'We make a pair, you and me, anyone who gets too close ends up fleeing to the ends of the earth.'
With some little difficulty, Cordon hoicked the dog off the settee so they could both sit down.
'You're seeing someone, though,' he said.
'Am I?'
'I imagine.'