Good Girls Don't Die

by Isabelle Grey

  Whether or not Polly had been too out of it to know where he was taking her or what she was agreeing to, his princess had assented to come home with him. Had he believed this was the start of the love affair he’d dreamed about? If so, then if Polly had probably been sober enough to reject him: for Danny, the shame of her rejection must have been unbearable.

  What was it that Ivo Sweatman had said to her? You’d be amazed how many times you have to let someone down before you finally convince them you’re not worth it. But did it work like that? What about the person whose faith and hope is endlessly thrown back in their face? How worthless do their efforts feel? How angry does that make them?

  Grace was more convinced than ever that she couldn’t follow Lance’s well-meant advice to watch her back: Danny was too damaged, too vulnerable, too lethal. She couldn’t just pipe down and let it go. But Colin and the review team were in charge now, and they were all gung-ho about charging Matt Beeston and possibly Pawel Zawodny, too; they weren’t about to listen to her. Besides, she already knew exactly what her old DCI would say: Clear the ground beneath your feet. Go for the obvious before the fantastic. Bring me evidence, not mumbo-jumbo. She might hate Colin Pitman’s guts but sometimes he was right.

  There was only one way to prove this to herself. Grace had noticed a payphone near the entrance to the car park and made straight for it. Ivo Sweatman picked up after a couple of rings.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Ivo couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been up and dressed at this ungodly hour, let alone out of doors. And come to think of it, whenever the last time had been, he was more likely making his unsteady way home rather than standing around in the morning chill at the edge of a playing field, listening to the birds chirruping away like they were tuning up for school orchestra practice. He felt like Little Lord Fauntleroy or Fotherington-Thomas or some other childish sap who could actually tell the difference between one little brown bird and another. Fair enough, the Ice Maiden had asked him if he’d mind looking a fool if she turned out to be wrong, but when he’d told her he’d be honoured, he hadn’t reckoned on a bloody nature ramble at first light on a Tuesday morning.

  She’d told him to take another look at the photograph of Danny-boy’s mother, and then to start in Wivenhoe Woods, especially any really overgrown areas close to the little car park at the end of Rosemead Avenue. He hadn’t parked there for fear, at this unseemly hour, of attracting unwanted attention, which was the same reason he’d said he’d meet the dog-handler here on the playing field that bordered the woods. There was a middle-aged guy heading across the grass towards him now with a black-and-white dog on a lead, a kind of spaniel, Ivo guessed, though it looked too soft and playful to be capable of the kind of serious work he wanted done. And for which the Young Ferret had obligingly organised a handsome payment upfront.

  Ivo hoped for her sake that the Ice Maiden wasn’t clutching at straws. Danny-boy could have dumped Polly’s body absolutely anywhere around here – in the creek, a gravel pit, beside a railway line where no one ever went – and he’d warned her that Whatshername from Sky News had already had her bonkathon ex-SAS tracker out here and found nothing. But the Ice Maiden hadn’t cared. She’ll be somewhere safe, somewhere special, her head on something soft. That’s how she’ll be found. That’s what she’d said, and so here he was, prepared on her say-so alone to give it his best, even if that did mean risking every single brownie point he’d chalked up with his editor this past week.

  He was wrong for starters about the soft-looking dog, for the guy came right up to him and greeted him by name, introducing himself as Martin and the spaniel as Lucy. Although Martin had explained it all to him on the phone, Ivo still couldn’t for the life of him see how the cadaver dog wasn’t going to get totally confused by all the different whiffs and odours that even Ivo’s jaded nose could pick up as they drew closer to the trees, and Lucy herself seemed to be in such an ecstasy of busy excitement that Ivo figured it would take her all day to make her way through just the first few yards of vegetation.

  Ivo showed Martin the photo on his phone: the background behind the amateurish wooden structure was out of focus, just fuzzy green outdoors, of no help at all. ‘We’re looking for something like an old den, that kind of thing,’ he said. ‘It’ll be at least fifteen years old now, so there may only be a few bits of wood left, if there’s anything at all. And it’s likely to be well off any of the regular paths.’

  ‘If there’s something here, we’ll find it,’ Martin said calmly, and set off along the nearest track holding the eager Lucy on a short leash, leaving Ivo to resign himself to a long, footsore morning chasing around in ever-decreasing circles.

  ‘And if you find anything, for God’s sake don’t touch it,’ Ivo remembered to call after him. Ring Keith, call 999, anything, but don’t go near it were the Ice Maiden’s orders, not that he needed them: after Roxanne, the last thing on earth he wanted was the image of another dead girl in his head.

  ‘I have done this before,’ Martin called back over his shoulder, unperturbed.

  And whatever you do, don’t call me. You have to keep me right out of it. He’d heed that instruction, too, but found he couldn’t summon up much relish for grabbing any glory that lay in finding the rotting corpse of ‘Our Polly’. He’d gathered that DS Fisher was way out on the edge of a cliff here, backing her hunch about Danny-boy. He was convinced she was right, but feared that that poisonous little fart of a boss of hers, Colin Pitman, would probably be more keen right now on getting rid of her than convicting the right suspect. Ivo felt a stab of guilt that his headlines had helped to undermine Keith Stalgood’s position, but hey, all’s fair in love and war.

  Lucy pulled her handler unhesitatingly along paths that all led in the same direction, and the dog was now clearly determined to continue in a straight line into less frequented undergrowth. Ivo and Martin had to fight their way through vicious brambles and thick, spiky bushes. By the time they came across a broken-down ladder which, though well hidden, was, as Martin pointed out, lying on top of this year’s new growth, even Ivo could smell it. Fuck, it was horrible! But, peer as he might through the dense tangle that surrounded them, he couldn’t see anything that resembled a den or a kids’ stockade. Lucy sat back on her haunches facing the spreading base of a rugged oak tree, her nose pointing up at the trunk. As Ivo watched the dog sit there, so still, yet taut with quivering anticipation, his brain clicked into gear: a ladder! He looked up, and there above him, maybe fifteen or twenty feet up and laid across two thick branches, was the platform of what must once have been a fairly substantial tree house. Between the rotting planks Ivo could make out a bundled shape tightly wrapped in black plastic.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, blundering back the way they’d come, praying that he wouldn’t throw up. Martin followed, making a big fuss of his dog, rewarding her for a job well done.

  ‘Two weeks ago, you say she went missing?’ he asked Ivo.

  Ivo nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth.

  ‘Whoever left it there must’ve trussed it up tight or you wouldn’t have needed the dog to find her. Not in this weather. Mind you, it’s been protected from the worst of the rats and the carrion birds.’

  Ivo wasn’t listening. He was trying to keep his hand steady enough to find the right number on his phone. It was only when he heard Keith’s sleepy voice that he realised he’d woken him up, that it was still only half-past five in the morning.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Grace had been woken at two by the Skype ringtone on her laptop, which she’d left on the floor by her bed. The connection to southern Afghanistan had been patchy, but, as the sun was rising in Helmand, and before the 40-degree temperatures kicked in, she’d been able to have an illuminating conversation with Michael Tooley, a matter-of-fact professional soldier in khaki singlet and shorts sitting in what looked like a swelteringly hot metal shipping container. She felt like she’d only just fallen asleep again when her mobi
le rang sometime after six. It was Keith, calling from Wivenhoe Woods where he was waiting to meet the forensic pathologist and the crime scene manager. The second he’d heard that Ivo Sweatman, aided and abetted by a trained cadaver dog, had discovered what, according to the dog-handler, could only be human remains in the collapsing remnants of a kids’ tree house, he’d driven there with blues and twos all the way from Upminster. Grace did her best to sound astonished.

  By the time she was climbing the stairs to the MIT office shortly before seven, all hell had broken loose. She met Hilary coming down. ‘I’ve just been told a third suspect has been arrested,’ she said, ‘and there’s not a single officer available for the morning press conference. What on earth am I supposed to tell the media this time!’

  Hilary clattered off and Grace went into the office. Lance materialised at her side as if he’d been waiting for her. ‘You have anything to do with this?’ he asked with a sly grin, his eyes shining with excitement.

  ‘Me? No!’

  ‘Yeah, right. But don’t worry, my lips are sealed. They’re bringing Danny in now.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I told the superheroes it has to be you who leads the interview, that you’re the only one who’s had a real handle on this right from the start.’

  Grace was surprised, and touched. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Come on! It’s your collar, regardless of whatever funny handshakes you’ve been having with Ivo Sweatman.’

  Confirming Lance’s words, Superintendent Millington immediately called Grace into her office, and she, Grace, Lance and Duncan spent the next hour planning the interview strategy. Before they were finished, Keith called from the mortuary to report that Dr Tripathi had now cut through enough of the tightly bound layers of black refuse sacks and gaffer tape to confirm that they contained human remains. It would take some time to fully uncover the body, which had been wrapped with great care in a clean bed-sheet and then swaddled with an eiderdown, but the pale blue dress the corpse was wearing would appear to confirm unofficially that they had found Polly Sinclair. Formal identification and preliminary post-mortem results would follow later in the day, and they’d keep the interview team updated.

  When Grace and Duncan entered the interview room an hour later, Danny was already sitting at the table beside one of the duty solicitors, who nodded familiarly to Duncan. Danny picked nervously at the loose cuffs of his plain white work shirt and listened numbly as Duncan went through the formal preliminaries. The dark hairs showing on Danny’s arms above his bony wrists looked as if they had sprouted there overnight, making his pale skin seem naked and exposed, that of a child in an adult body.

  It had been agreed, after some discussion, that Grace would begin by showing Danny the print-out of the photograph that he had framed on his mantelpiece. ‘You know what this is, don’t you, Danny?’ she asked, identifying it for the tape as a numbered exhibit.

  ‘How did you get that?’

  ‘You let the journalist from the Courier take a photo of it. And we talked about it yesterday, didn’t we?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where was it taken, do you remember?’

  ‘I was only little.’

  ‘Was it in Wivenhoe Woods?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Think hard, Danny. When’s the last time you visited this place?’

  ‘Not for years. I don’t know where it is.’

  ‘So it would surprise you, then, if we told you that we’re pretty certain we’ve found it?’

  Danny stared at her in obvious panic. Grace had tried earlier to explain to Lena Millington that Danny was immature, naive, a fantasist, but also ruthless, cunning and manipulative, not in pursuit of power over other people but in defence of his own self-delusions. He was panicking now from fear not that he’d been caught but that his precious house of cards would come tumbling down and leave him facing nothing but emotional and psychological ruin.

  ‘I spoke to your brother, Michael, earlier this morning.’

  ‘You can’t have done! He’s in Helmand.’

  ‘He is, yes. But we had a video call. He told me about your mother’s illness.’

  ‘She was depressed. He never understood depression.’

  ‘Your mother may have been depressed, but she was also an alcoholic, Danny.’

  Danny smoothed his fingers over the photograph of Marie Tooley. ‘This is my mother. Look at her. She’s fine. She’s lovely.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Grace. ‘On a good day. A rare good day, from what Michael told me.’

  ‘She was a lovely mother.’

  ‘But there were also months at a time when she failed to get out of bed, soiled herself, vomited and refused to clean it up. And rewarded your devoted care with vile abuse.’

  ‘She was ill. I looked after her.’

  ‘You did, Danny. I know. Michael could never understand why you stayed. Why you didn’t get out like he did. I spoke to the social workers who also tried to help you. They said you missed so much school on her account that it was a miracle you got any education at all.’

  ‘She couldn’t help it. She tried. When she was well, she promised it wouldn’t happen again. She never meant to be like that. She was ill. It’s not who she really was.’

  ‘Like Polly?’

  Danny’s head shot up and he stared at her, his mouth hanging open in shock.

  ‘Polly was really rude to you that night in Colchester when she asked for a lift. Even Dr Beeston was surprised that she had such a mouth on her.’

  ‘She didn’t mean it! She came specially to apologise the next day!’

  ‘And when she got drunk again the next night, and was staggering around alone in the centre of Colchester at one in the morning, what did you think?’

  ‘I took care of her.’

  ‘But then she turned out to be just as ungrateful as your mother, didn’t she, Danny? Polly didn’t love you any more than your mother did.’

  Danny placed both hands on the table, shoved his chair back and got to his feet. For a moment Grace thought he was going to attack her, and she tried hard to remain impassive, glad of Duncan beside her. But Danny turned to his solicitor. ‘She can’t do this. She can’t talk like this. Make her stop.’

  The solicitor soothed him and got him to sit down again, explaining that, though he was free not to answer, the police could ask him anything they liked.

  ‘What did your mother like to drink?’ said Grace. ‘Did she like vodka?’

  ‘Tea. She liked to drink tea.’

  ‘Not according to your brother, Michael. If she got to choose, then she liked vodka, but most of the time she’d take whatever was cheap, whatever was on special offer. She made Michael give you an ID card so you could pretend to be eighteen and go out to buy her booze for her. You always had to buy whatever was on special offer, or she’d yell and curse at you when you got back.’

  Danny folded his arms, sitting straight in his chair, chin down, legs pressed together, not looking at anyone.

  ‘But it was the booze that stopped her loving you, wasn’t it, Danny? Stopped her being the lovely mother who took you on picnics and ate crisps with you in a tree house in the woods.’

  Danny went on pretending not to hear.

  ‘Fire’n’Ice was on special offer the week that Rachel Moston was killed.’ Grace tried to keep the excitement out of her voice. She still had some lingering doubt about whether Danny was really capable of luring a confident young woman like Rachel onto a demolition site in the middle of the night. She was desperate to get to the truth, to know finally what had happened that summer night when all the students were out celebrating the end of their exams.

  She opened a folder she had placed earlier on the table. ‘You’d have recognised Rachel from the bookshop, is that right?’

  Danny nodded imperceptibly.

  ‘For the tape, please.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But she was never nice to you like Polly.’

  ‘She
had no idea who I was.’

  ‘So it was OK to be angry with her. You were upset and distressed about what happened that night when, as you told us, you had given Polly a lift home. Unbearably distressed, perhaps. Rachel was strangled five days after Polly went missing. Whoever did that left a very definite message in the way he posed her body.’ Grace dealt out three crime scene photos. ‘What do you think this meant?’ she asked. She placed her fingertip on the paper, pressing down firmly on the glistening bottle of Fire ‘n’ Ice between the pale thighs.

  After a single glance, the solicitor looked away, his face contracting in disgust. Grace watched Danny carefully. Whatever he felt, it was not surprise: he knew exactly what to expect.

  ‘I think whoever did this wanted to explain something, to explain his feelings,’ said Grace. ‘Rachel had been out celebrating. She’d completed her degree and would be leaving uni for a good job. She’d been out with her friends and had drunk one too many on a warm, balmy night. That’s when you saw her leaving the Blue Bar, right?’

  Danny stared at Grace, his mouth set with a belligerence she’d never seen in him before.

  ‘So, what? You offered her a lift? Told her you also lived in Wivenhoe and that your car was parked nearby? Is that how you got her to walk with you?’

  ‘She’d been sick,’ he said abruptly. ‘The cabs refused to take her in case she threw up again.’

  ‘So you were looking after her?’

  ‘I said I’d get her home.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘For the tape.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where did the vodka bottle come from?’

  ‘It was on a wall. Someone had left it there. She said it was a shame to let it go to waste and started drinking from it. She’d just been sick! It was disgusting.’