Good Girls Don't Die

by Isabelle Grey

  ‘Rachel wouldn’t have been meeting him there?’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Have you ever felt threatened by him?’

  ‘Nah. I mean, he’s a nice enough guy, I suppose.’ Caitlin paused. ‘He’s fine as a teacher.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t socialise?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what do you mean, then, when you say he’s a player?’

  ‘He hits on the newbies, before they wise up. He’s a bit lame, that’s all.’

  ‘Bad enough for anyone to complain to the faculty?’

  Caitlin merely shrugged, so Grace moved on. ‘Can you think of anyone Rachel might have felt threatened by?’ she asked. ‘Anyone hassling her or giving her unwanted attention? A rejected boyfriend, or someone from home?’

  Caitlin looked to Amber, who dragged her gaze away from Grace only to shake her head.

  ‘Rachel’s really straight, you know?’ Grace had to strain to hear Amber’s quiet voice. ‘Easy. Kind. Her life is just friends, family, boyfriend, work. Was,’ Amber corrected herself, reaching for Caitlin’s hand. ‘Was kind and easy. This can’t be happening! She had such a good job lined up and everything. She can’t be dead! It’s not fair!’

  ‘I’m really sorry.’ Grace spoke as calmly as she could. ‘Just a couple more questions, then we’ll leave you in peace. Firstly, did Rachel have a red jacket, cut like a bomber jacket, with button-down breast pockets?’

  Caitlin nodded miserably.

  ‘Was vodka a drink she liked?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not particularly.’

  Grace knew that the officers upstairs had already checked for any vodka bottles in the house, and that the rubbish had been bagged up and would be taken away for examination. She gave Lance a slight nod, indicating he should take over the questions.

  ‘Do you see much of your landlord?’

  ‘He was here yesterday, to mend the shower,’ said Caitlin.

  Lance looked triumphantly at Grace. ‘What time was that?’

  ‘About six. He came over specially, because we wanted showers before we went out.’

  ‘And Rachel was here then?’

  ‘Yes.’ Caitlin’s eyes filled once more with tears.

  ‘How long was he here?’

  ‘Not long. It just needed a new fixing in the wall.’

  ‘How do you get on with him?’ Lance asked.

  ‘Fine. Pawel’s a good landlord. Makes a real effort.’

  Grace noticed that Amber, staring at her hands in her lap, was picking at her nails. ‘Would you say the same, Amber?’ she asked gently.

  Amber looked as though she’d been caught out at something. ‘Oh, yeah, he’s fine,’ she said dismissively, hiding her hands.

  ‘All his tenants are women,’ Grace observed, as if the thought had only just stuck her. ‘No issues there?’

  ‘No,’ Amber answered, with the kind of moody shrug a teenager might give. Grace wondered what she wasn’t saying, and why. She looked at Lance, but he appeared not to have noticed anything amiss.

  ‘OK, thanks,’ Grace said. ‘We may have further questions, and we must ask you not to touch any of Rachel’s belongings.’

  ‘You’ll probably get the press banging on your door,’ Lance warned them. ‘Or trying to make contact with you through your social media. We can’t tell you what to do, but we’d very much prefer you not to talk to them or engage with them in any way as it can complicate the enquiry. They can be very persistent, so let us know if it gets too much.’

  ‘You may be better going to stay with friends tonight.’

  ‘I just want to go home,’ said Caitlin. ‘Is that all right?’

  Grace nodded. ‘You’ve got our cards. Just send us your contact details.’

  She and Lance let themselves out and walked back to the car.

  The midsummer solstice was approaching and it wouldn’t be dark for several hours yet, but as Lance drove, Grace watched the trees already casting flickering shadows across the road. The way out of Wivenhoe led past small post-war council estates and then a ribbon of bungalows. She could see stretches of woodland beyond and it was not long before they reached agricultural land. Where was Polly, she asked herself. What vital lead were they missing?

  She summoned to mind the image of Rachel’s body early this morning lying on the sharp-edged broken bricks, roof tiles and lumps of plaster of the demolition site. Grace had seen other crime scenes, other bodies that sprawled on the ground as they had fallen or been thrown down, dumped or pushed aside, bruised, bloodied and bloated corpses with splayed legs, ungainly arms, faces pushed into mud and dirt – or worse. Never had she seen a murder victim left the way Rachel Moston’s killer had left her.

  There had been no attempt to conceal the body. As soon as it was light, Rachel had been spotted by someone walking past. She’d been laid down decently, the violating bottle hidden modestly beneath her skirt, so much so that the office cleaner who called the emergency services had thought at first it was someone playing a prank, lying down there deliberately as some kind of practical joke.

  Had Rachel been carrying her jacket, Grace conjectured, or had her killer removed it in order to fold it beneath her head? For, despite the crude indignity of the vodka bottle, Grace was sure there was something genuinely tender and regretful, an air almost of sorrow or contrition, about the way Rachel had been so delicately laid down on the rough ground.

  She thought back to when they’d spoken to Matt Beeston. Despite his obvious alarm that Polly might have made some kind of complaint against him, he hadn’t been in the least regretful. There had been no hint of apology, either, in the direct way Pawel Zawodny had eyed Grace up and down in her summer dress that first day. She hoped they weren’t looking in entirely the wrong direction by concentrating on what connected Polly and Rachel.

  She became conscious of Lance glancing at her from time to time as he drove. ‘Sorry,’ she said, smiling. ‘Too tired for small talk. D’you mind?’

  ‘No. But –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Another time.’

  ‘No, go on.’

  ‘You know there’s talk about why you left Kent?’

  She felt clammy and sick. All the old tension and broiling injustice and hurt came flooding back. She looked angrily out of the side window, waiting for the rush to subside: it wasn’t Lance’s fault, after all.

  ‘I thought you ought to know.’ He sounded half apologetic, half aggrieved.

  ‘Thanks,’ Grace said, turning to look at him. ‘Really, I appreciate it. Better to know.’ She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the worst. ‘So what are people saying?’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me first what happened?’

  ‘What, I’m a suspect?’ She laughed bitterly.

  ‘If you don’t want to talk about it –’

  ‘No. It’s fine.’ She tried to work out how little she could get away with. ‘A guy called Lee Roberts, a very popular uniformed constable and star of the police national cycling team, got busted red-handed along with the dealer who was selling him banned steroids and amphetamines.’

  ‘Word is you fitted him up.’

  ‘It was a clean bust,’ she told Lance sharply, and hoped her burning face wouldn’t give her away. ‘But I had been concerned about him. He’d always had a short fuse and was starting to get paranoid, showing signs of amphetamine psychosis. There was an incident with a prisoner. I didn’t think it should’ve been hushed up and I said so. Spoke up about him needing help, too. No one did anything, but then when he got caught, he blamed it all on me.’

  ‘And you left Kent because –?’

  ‘I quit.’ All over again, she tasted the bitter disappointment of her DCI’s silent relief when she’d handed him her letter of resignation. ‘Like I say, Lee Roberts was a very popular guy.’

  ‘And you weren’t?’

  ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Pretty much. Does that fit with what you
’ve heard?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  Grace could see from the tight set of Lance’s mouth that he wasn’t entirely satisfied, but this would have to do, for now, at any rate. She wasn’t going to start telling him about the hate mail, the dog turds in her desk drawer or how Lee’s girlfriend spat in her face one weekend in a crowded supermarket aisle. She had no evidence to prove her fellow officers had waged such a war of attrition against her: after all, who could she go to? Not the police, that was for sure.

  To her relief, her mobile rang, and she thanked whatever stars were looking out for her. Duncan’s name appeared on screen, and she put him on speaker. ‘Hey?’

  Duncan’s excitement filled the car. ‘Transactions on Matt Beeston’s credit card show he was buying drinks at the Blue Bar last night. Same time Rachel Moston was there. Not only that, he was there the night Polly disappeared, too.’

  ‘He never mentioned that,’ said Grace.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Rachel’s housemate just told us that he’s a player, hits on the new students.’

  ‘Even better. The super wants him picked up right away. Plus the clothes he was wearing last night.’

  Lance pushed back against the steering wheel and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

  ‘Thought you’d be disappointed,’ she teased.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You placed your bets on the Polish landlord.’

  ‘Ah well, you know what they say: he’ll come again!’ His eyes on the road, Lance didn’t seem too bothered by the investigation’s swift change of focus.

  Grace settled back in her seat, reflecting that if only this had been an entirely fresh start, without any of the rotten stuff from the past still hanging over her, she’d have been well satisfied by the progress they were making.

  TEN

  Ivo was happy. This was the moment he loved best, when all the cowboys were gathered around the campfire watching sparks fly in the dark and telling tall tales about past adventures. This first evening – before the death knocks and doors slammed in your face, before the news editors started demanding more, bigger, better, before the lethal rivalry and betrayals got properly saddled up – was always the sweetest. Even without a drink in his hand, he was happy. Most of the old faces had now turned up. Funny how they always nosed their way to the same hotel. Few newspapers these days ran more than a couple of foreign desks, and they let fresh-faced kids who thought they were immortal run around in war zones, but crime would sell for all eternity, allowing him and his colleagues to keep tight hold of their expense accounts. His little ferret chum back in the office would have to go on yearning for Ivo’s job for a good while yet.

  Beside him, in the bar of the Queen’s Hotel, sat Roxanne Carson. She was a good girl, the kind who would no doubt also be setting her cap at his job. She’d called right away to tip him off that a member of the public had rung her paper with the news that the police had made an arrest. This public-spirited informant was soon encouraged to divulge that she lived in the flat next door to Dr Matt Beeston, a university lecturer, who’d been taken away by police late that afternoon. Moreover, the informant wasn’t surprised: when pressed, she’d volunteered that her neighbour didn’t put his rubbish out on the correct days, and when he did, none of it was in the proper recycling bags.

  Despite a barrage of calls to Hilary’s mobile, all she would say when Ivo finally got through was that a twenty-six-year-old man was helping them with their enquiries. Which was fine and dandy so far as he was concerned. He’d impressed on Roxanne the first rule of journalism: you don’t share. Or only with him, anyway. So, with any luck, the Courier would be the only national to lead tomorrow with the man’s identity. And a little more besides.

  It was the work of moments to rummage around on Facebook and Instagram and then follow up with a few cold calls, enabling Ivo to put together a new and unexpectedly juicy story on Dr Beeston. Tomorrow’s edition would carry photos of Matt partying, captioned with quotes from female students about the randy lecturer’s ‘relaxed’ and ‘unstuffy’ style of teaching.

  The academic’s frolics had been so accessible that Ivo had still had time to spare for a bit of digging into the Ice Maiden. A few more calls and emails had thrown up some unexpected background, and when Roxanne had arrived promptly at the hotel, he had probed gently to see how much she knew about her friend. She was either the soul of discretion (which he doubted) or DS Fisher had understandably chosen not to divulge the full story (which made his research all the more valuable).

  Accepting the first of several drinks, Roxanne had been keen to offer further tributes to the power she hoped to impress and from which she hoped to extract favours in return. One nugget – that Polly’s father had recently had treatment for cancer – he filed away: it wasn’t news but would make a good inside follow-on in the absence of harder copy. The other – that in Polly’s final CCTV images she’d been too pissed to walk straight – was pure gold. There’d already been talk at the Courier about running a summer campaign on the shame of Britain’s underage drinking culture, and this would play straight into it. What was the statistic? That British girls were the hardest-drinking teenagers in the western world. What with the different health angles, demands for action from MPs and local councils, haranguing the drinks industry, and a few first-person celebrity tragedies, they could spin it along for weeks – right through the August silly season when news stories could be hard to find. Odds were that Rachel Moston, too, had been drinking, in which case her murder would keep Ivo right at the heart of a crusade claiming to protect these young women from themselves. Result!

  And while Ivo had already scanned both Polly and Rachel’s social media sites, Roxanne had been able to insinuate herself into some of the conversations the girls’ friends were having on Twitter and Facebook. Nothing usable yet, but at least she’d wormed her way in there. She’d also befriended some kid who worked in the campus bookshop, who was in a good position to keep watch and listen. According to him, the university authorities had already instructed people not to speak to the press except through the vice principal’s office, but this kid had known Polly, wanted to help find her, and promised to keep Roxanne informed. The fact that he’d turned down Roxanne’s offer of a hundred quid was only to the good; it meant he wasn’t likely to ditch them for a higher offer from elsewhere.

  Roxanne had also finally – what on earth did they teach ’em on these fancy journalism courses? – checked in with Polly’s parents, who’d been too shocked by the murder of one of their daughter’s fellow students to give more than a brief statement, but at least Roxanne had not blabbed it to every other reporter in the bar, and it had beefed up his story very nicely.

  He observed her now, leaning forward in her chair, drinking in the banter and scurrilous gossip. Her eyes shone and her mouth hung open a little. She was a ripe little thing. Not that he fancied her himself. He no longer had the energy to take on someone nearly half his age, and two ex-wives were quite enough, thank you very much. He wasn’t sure whether she realised how hard these beer guts around the table were trying to impress a pretty girl. She caught him watching her and gave a tiny smile: she knew, all right. Good. He needed her to be clever, just not so clever that he had to worry about her loyalty. Before she left tonight he’d dangle some catnip to keep her keen. He could surely wangle her a few shifts on the paper, maybe even let her feast her lusting eyes on the Young Ferret’s job.

  Now Fleet Street’s finest were bragging about the goriest stories they’d each covered and speculating on where Polly Sinclair might be found. Manacled in a cellar? Chopped up into little pieces and fed to the pigs? Abducted by aliens? You could be sure the police had already had at least ten calls from eyewitnesses who’d seen the spacecraft land and take off, and would receive a dozen more. As the gang got louder and more raucous, the bar staff began to look anxiously in their direction as other guests, picking up the gist of their laughter, shot pointedly disgusted glances towa
rds them. But this lot didn’t give a toss. It just egged them on. If what they wrote was so repugnant, how come circulation figures inevitably rose whenever the papers led with a particularly brutal or salacious crime? Punters loved it.

  Ivo polished off his mineral water and sat back, letting his mind wander. It would soon be time for the ten o’clock news on the telly, and he’d have to watch to see if they fitted in coverage of the murder. That would probably depend on whether the current British hopeful had got knocked out of the latest tennis. Meanwhile, he thought about the twenty-six-year-old man helping police with their enquiries. If they had him bang to rights, then he’d likely be charged tomorrow and the whole thing would be sub judice, so they might as well all shut up shop and go home. Just as well he’d got his story in when he did. But he hoped Keith hadn’t bagged his man this easily. If there was a serial killer on the loose, then finding a couple more bodies first would be much more fun. Ivo hated the summer air conditioning back in the office, and would far rather hang around Colchester for a while yet.

  The police had not picked up Dr Beeston until the end of the day, so would more than likely hang on to him overnight to soften him up a bit. Ivo thought about being locked up in a cell. It had only happened to him once – which was a miracle when you thought about it – but he’d never forgotten it. The twenty-six-year-old would have eight hours for it to sink deep into his bone marrow that he’d lost control. He’d have to piss four feet from where he laid his head. They’d have taken away his phone. No one was going to bring him a cup of coffee or a clean shirt just because he wanted one.

  If he’s not guilty, Ivo figured that he’d start off thinking it’ll be all right; he’s innocent, it’s just a stupid mistake. All he has to do is explain and they’ll shake his hand, thank him for his time and let him go. After all, he’s got a Ph.D. and clean fingernails. Miscarriages of justice don’t happen to people like him. But ever so slowly he’ll come to understand that, in the cells, there are no ‘people like him’; there are just those waiting to be locked up and those waiting to do it. It’ll finally dawn on him that no one’s going to let him out until they decide it’s what they want to do.