Good Girls Don't Die

by Isabelle Grey

  He stood on the brow of the slope from where he could survey the massing crowds. Who the fuck were all these people anyway? They couldn’t possibly all have known Polly, so what were they doing here, clutching their balloons and soft toys and flowers and swaying to the plaintive sounds of young female singers Ivo had never heard of? How was making a shrine out of cuddly toys or playing Polly’s favourite music supposed to bring her back? ‘Our Polly.’ Well, he could hardly complain: he’d done as much as anyone to encourage this maudlin outpouring of pain-free grief.

  He sensed someone behind him and turned to find Keith at his elbow. ‘Evening, all,’ Ivo joked, but Keith didn’t smile. Ivo couldn’t blame him. The Courier’s headline this morning had been Back to square one, and in his lead article Ivo had gleefully pilloried the SIO and his team for their incompetence. Has a killer been set free?, his first column heading, had reminded amnesiac readers that Pawel Zawodny was the second suspect to be released without charge. The next column heading – Burnt out? – introduced a snappy discussion of whether Superintendent Keith Stalgood was past his prime, rehashing the fiasco of the Chalmers case en route. So no, all in all, Ivo hardly expected a welcoming grin and a slap on the back from his old sparring partner.

  ‘How did you find out about the bottle?’ demanded Keith, obviously dispensing with preliminaries.

  Ivo raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s that important, is it?’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me. Or when we do charge our man, I’ll make damn sure you’re the very last to know.’

  ‘I don’t scare easy. Besides, my editor just signed up your previous chief constable to front a column at two hundred grand a year plus a ghostwriter to do all the work, so I don’t think we’ll be begging at your door for news any time soon.’

  Keith sighed and abruptly lowered himself to sit on the ground, stretching out his long, lean legs and leaning back on one elbow. With his free hand he patted the grass beside him and looked up at Ivo. ‘Let’s talk like reasonable human beings.’

  Ivo sat down, his old bones creaking; with his belly, he’d probably struggle humiliatingly to get back up again, but he’d worry about that later. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Shoot.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Keith admitted. ‘I’m on a hiding to nothing. Hilary’s only got half a dozen press officers across the whole of Essex to keep hundreds of journalists happy. It can’t be done, even if she actually knew what she was doing. And I’m not naive. I’m fully aware that it would be career suicide for my overlords to take on your bosses by championing someone with my track record and telling you lot to piss off and let me get on with my job. So let’s just accept that you’re going to make me run this investigation with one hand tied behind my back and there’s not much I can do about it.’

  ‘The way of the world,’ Ivo agreed. There’d always been something about Keith Stalgood that he’d admired, and he felt obscurely flattered that the man had chosen to level with him.

  ‘There’s only one thing I care about.’

  Ivo waited, but Keith didn’t continue. The sun was heading for the horizon, allowing the hundreds of tea lights to glitter more brightly. A hushed, respectful murmur of voices rose up to them from below and even Ivo had to admit there was something moving, almost enchanted, in the scene.

  ‘Do you want to see another of these kids get killed?’ Keith asked in a low voice.

  Ivo thought of his daughter: she could be down there and he’d be none the wiser. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Is someone on my team leaking details of the investigation?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ivo hesitated: it went against every atom of professional instinct to say what he was about to say, but he said it anyway. ‘The tip-off came from Roxanne Carson on the Mercury.’ He saw Keith’s face harden. ‘I don’t know who she’s talking to. She won’t tell me,’ he added, wishing, for some unfathomable reason, to shelter the Ice Maiden from blame.

  ‘And it all came from Roxanne Carson?’

  Ivo swallowed hard. ‘We applied a few dark arts of our own, in house.’

  Keith nodded. ‘Thanks, Ivo. I owe you one. I won’t forget.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Ivo mumbled. ‘Call it a freebie.’

  Keith scrambled to his feet and, with a discreet flutter of his hand in farewell, made off down the slope. Ivo watched him go, wondering what the fuck was happening to himself: if he didn’t watch it, he’d turn into a right sentimental old tosser.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The scene would have been magical, thought Grace, had it not been for its tragic purpose – and for the jarring presence of Lance beside her. They were here to work, to watch and listen and be on hand if the surveillance team on Pawel Zawodny needed backup. Since Lance’s interview with the chief con, he had remained so scrupulously polite towards Grace as to be almost deferential; it was wearing her down, and right now she’d prefer open hostilities to this lumbering elephant in the room. She could hardly believe that this tight-lipped creature slowly weaving his way between the candlelit encampments was the same man she’d laughed with only a few days earlier.

  At least she felt a little stronger in herself, having decided on the drive back from the old coaching inn that the odds were she probably hadn’t made a drunken idiot of herself at the Blue Bar. On her way to work this morning she’d bought a nice card in which to write an apology to Roxanne. It felt ridiculous not simply to call by her flat and speak to her, but they’d have to wait for this case to be over before attempting to salvage the friendship face to face.

  She glanced sideways at Lance: what was he thinking? Did he still distrust her? Resent her for not sharing his certainty about Pawel? But it was no good feeling sorry for herself. However unjust the media’s relentless scrutiny, they were all now in this together. After the chief con’s early morning visit, even Duncan had confessed that he’d told Joan details he should have kept to himself. He hadn’t needed to spell it out; everyone understood that he’d done it to impress her, to woo her with privileged access to insider knowledge. Secrets were sexy, and all police officers had probably done the same at some point in their careers. And, besides, everyone also knew that Joan wouldn’t breathe a word, so there was no question that Duncan had been dangerously indiscreet. Nonetheless it was humiliating, the way they’d all had to drill down, to use the chief con’s charmless phrase, into their intimate, private moments.

  They were all of them trying to do their best, yet failing to satisfy anyone – not this gathering tonight, not the massed media, not the higher ranks breathing down the SIO’s neck, not each other, and certainly not the friends and family of the two victims whose killer they hunted so ineffectually.

  Down beside the lake, dozens of Chinese lanterns began to drift upwards, paper globes glowing with light and heat, the naked flames reflected in the tranquil water below. A girl’s lone voice, strong and deep, began to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and gradually voices from all around her joined in. Grace looked at Lance, gave a little nod of recognition, and the two of them also began to sing. It soon ended – ‘Happy birthday, dear Polly, Happy birthday to you!’ – and was followed by silence, a communally held breath, before Grace made out muffled sounds of people weeping.

  Dozens more lanterns were released skywards, rising and drifting until their trapped air was used up and the flames extinguished. Silhouetted against the dark water Grace could make out Phil and Beverly Sinclair clinging to one another, surrounded by Polly’s student friends, who stood gently patting their arms and shoulders. Off to one side, heads bowed, stood Rachel Moston’s parents, Clive and Rosalind.

  Grace was keenly moved, and saw that Lance, too, was making no attempt to hide that he felt the power of the moment. His eyes met hers and she felt something between them shift and give way. He must have done so, too, for he nodded and touched her shoulder. ‘We should keep moving,’ was all he said, but she really hoped that now they might revert to being comrades again.

  By unspoken assent, they turned away fro
m the lakeside, threading their way towards the raised concrete platforms of the campus. Sitting alone, not far from the base of the sloping path that cut through the grass, his head and hands resting on his raised knees, was Danny Tooley. For an instant he raised his head in order to wipe his forearm across his face and gazed unseeing into Grace’s eyes. She went straight to him, crouching down to put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Hey, Danny,’ she said. ‘It’s me, Grace Fisher.’

  Lance came up beside her, but remained standing.

  ‘Danny, I’m sorry you lost your friend.’

  He looked up with wet eyes. ‘I can’t bear it!’

  ‘No, I know. But look –’ She swept her arm around to encompass the hundreds of twinkling lights. ‘You’re not alone.’

  Danny’s gaze searched hers, as if unsure about accepting her sympathy.

  ‘What do you think Polly would make of this?’ Grace asked. ‘She’d be pleased, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. It’s good to see how many people care about her.’

  ‘She sounds lovely,’ said Grace, thinking of how Danny had tried to warn Polly against going home with Matt Beeston and had comforted her the day after her unsatisfactory hook-up. ‘I’m sorry I never met her.’

  ‘You let that other man go,’ he said. ‘The one you were asking about the other day.’

  ‘Her landlord, yes. But we want to find her, Danny. Have you thought of anything else you can tell us? Anything at all.’

  Grace was puzzled by the long look he gave her, but before she could coax him into saying more he rolled aside and rose quickly to his feet.

  ‘I don’t want to talk. I rather be on my own, if you don’t mind.’

  Grace let him wander away into the growing darkness. All the light was congregated below them now, and she and Lance turned and made their way down amid the different groupings, tuning into the different sounds of music or conversation as they passed. Then a voice called out to them from amongst those sitting on the ground. ‘DS Cooper?’

  Lance peered into the gloom, then, recognising Polly’s housemate, greeted Jessica kindly. Grace saw that Amber and Caitlin were also part of the circle seated around a grassy carpet of tea lights, candles and lanterns, and nodded to them both.

  ‘Do you want to join us?’ Jessica asked hopefully.

  ‘For a moment,’ Lance replied, fitting himself into the space Jessica made for him beside her. Grace made her way round to sit by Amber. ‘How are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘A bit better,’ the girl replied. ‘Especially now we’ve found other places to stay. The Accommodation Office was really helpful.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Grace was glad to hear that the university authorities had been supportive after the police had notified all Pawel’s tenants before his release from custody. She’d noticed that the university also had their own security patrols out in force tonight.

  ‘And it’s good that Caitlin’s back for a couple of days,’ said Amber. ‘Though we never expected it to be like this tonight. So many people. It’s amazing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Have you seen the Facebook pages we started? Thousands of people have liked them or posted comments to show they care.’

  Grace was glad that Amber had found comfort in the curiosity of so many strangers. She held up her phone. ‘Yes, I’m following.’ For the past couple of hours there’d been an outpouring of support across Twitter, Facebook and other sites, though Grace saw no reason to reveal that the police monitored them all for possible intelligence or signs of suspicious activity.

  ‘I didn’t think you knew Jessica?’ Grace asked.

  ‘She came to see me. It’s like, we’re the only ones who really know how this feels.’

  Grace chided herself for hearing the slight boast behind Amber’s words. No one was immune to the glamour that attached itself to newsworthy crimes, the specialness bestowed by proximity to the victim. Why else had so many people turned out tonight except for the spectacle and the crowd-surge of borrowed emotion? She and Lance had just felt it themselves as they joined in singing ‘Happy Birthday’.

  Across the circle she saw Lance pat Jessica’s hand and then stand up. ‘Better keep moving,’ she told Amber. ‘You look after yourself.’

  Grace and Lance walked in thoughtful silence around the perimeter of the lake until they found an empty bench on which they could sit and survey the scene.

  ‘Our friend must be here somewhere, don’t you think?’ asked Lance.

  ‘Pawel?’

  ‘Still not convinced?’

  Tired of conflict, Grace wished for some simple human interaction that wasn’t about grief and death. She didn’t want to get into an argument. Not tonight. ‘I don’t know. You and I diverge on what the display was about, but in the end all that is for the barristers to argue over, isn’t it?’ For a few minutes at least she longed simply to pretend they were just here to kick back, enjoy the end of a summer evening in the park. ‘So who are you when you’re not on duty?’ she asked.

  Lance took a moment to reply, and Grace began to fear that he’d refuse after all to mend bridges. ‘My dad’s in the Job,’ he said at last. ‘Retired last year. A PC. My sister’s married to a guy in traffic, also a PC.’

  ‘So you did good, making DS?’

  ‘They think I’m a jumped-up little prick.’

  ‘Oh! I’m sorry. That must be tough.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘The opposite. I was supposed to marry someone nice, give dinner parties and run an interior design shop.’

  He laughed. ‘That your mother’s dream?’

  ‘Stepmother’s. My mother died when my sister was born.’

  ‘Do you get on with her?’

  ‘My stepmother? Yes. Dad died ten years ago, ten years after he married my stepmum. She could’ve walked away, and she didn’t, so I appreciate that. But you should have seen her face when she thought I’d have to wear a uniform. Not what she had in mind.’

  ‘I have to say, I can’t quite imagine you in blues and flat black lace-ups, either!’

  ‘No.’

  Everyone from the Major Investigation Team here this evening had been instructed to blend in, and Grace had chosen skinny jeans, canvas shoes and a loose blouse. She’d always hated the swagger of a uniform: another significant difference between her and Trev, who loved the identification with the status and authority of the uniform and, though he would always deny it, felt diminished in civilian clothes. His work shirts had to be washed whiter than white, and he used to whistle with contentment as he blackened his shoes to a polished sheen before each and every shift.

  ‘And it’s your stepmum who’s friends with Hilary?’

  Grace came back to the present with a jolt. ‘You’ve a good memory.’

  ‘I thought about what you said.’

  Grace waited to see if he’d say more, but he seemed to judge it sufficient. ‘They were in corporate PR together,’ she told him. ‘Beauty products.’

  Lance laughed once more, not loudly but it sounded genuine. ‘That figures. So Hilary wants you to wear the same shade of lipstick as her?’

  Grace smiled. ‘More or less. Though she was kind to me. I’m not backtracking on that. She gave me a break when I needed one.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘And there’s a big place in this world for beauty products.’

  ‘Sure.’

  They sat in silence for a moment, contemplating the diminishing points of light around them. People were starting to make their way home now and the crowd was thinning out. Fewer lights were reflected on the surface of the lake and, despite the warm night, the widening expanse of dark water sent a sudden shiver up Grace’s spine.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get him.’ Lance spoke into the darkness.

  ‘So long as we stick together,’ Grace agreed quietly.

  THIRTY

  Ivo was looking for Roxanne. He’d spotted her earlier, all smiles and clea
vage, in a short gypsyish skirt, ankle boots and a denim bomber jacket, chatting to the aftershave advert who fronted for ITN. That was another black mark against her: fraternizing with the enemy. Ivo had kept tabs on her all evening, reckoning her source also had to be here tonight. He was determined to discover the identity of whomever it was she was so zealously keeping away from him. He was beginning to doubt after all that it was the Ice Maiden: so far tonight she’d gone nowhere near Roxanne, and anyway she appeared to be glued to the side of some fellow cop. So who else had Roxanne found to exchange billets-doux with?

  But then he’d been diverted by the astonishing sight of the prime suspect, Pawel Zawodny, marching bold as brass towards the lakeside where a makeshift shrine had been set up to the two girls, one of whom wasn’t even supposed to be dead, for fuck’s sake. Zawodny was carrying a huge bouquet of flowers, had to be a hundred quid’s worth at least, and Ivo had got straight on the blower to the Courier’s photographer, ordering him to get his arse over here yesterday and get the fucking picture.

  It wasn’t great, but the snapper at least got something before the police moved in and discreetly hustled Zawodny away. Ivo went after them. It had to be worth a punt at trying to persuade Zawodny to tell his side of the story. Ivo calculated he could risk going to at least thirty grand for an exclusive before clearing it with his editor. But the plain-clothes escort didn’t seem any too keen on letting that happen, and Ivo had to content himself with sticking his card on the suspect and begging him to call the number, any time.

  Then he had to find a quiet spot to phone in an extra two hundred words of new copy to accompany the shot of Zawodny and his flowers. The night editor, uncharacteristically cheerful, agreed it was never too late to make room for a good splash.