Old Bones

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Yeah, I’ll come and visit you,’ she said, and saw the light, which seemed as much relief as pleasure, in the eyes. ‘But you’ve got to shape up. No more of this carry-on. All right?’ Julienne nodded. ‘And first off, the lipstick goes back, and you’ve to write a letter to the store, apologizing, and promising never to do it again.’

  ‘All right,’ said Julienne, a lot too easily for Connolly’s liking. ‘Will you help me write it?’

  ‘You’ll write it yourself. And you’ll mean every word,’ Connolly said fiercely.

  ‘All right,’ she said again, and grinned. ‘Keep yer hair on.’

  Connolly went out to talk to the constable on the case, came back in with a pad and pen, and sat across from Julienne as she began laboriously to write her confession, wrist crooked awkwardly, elbow stuck up, head on one side, tongue between teeth.

  ‘How d’you spell “sorry”?’ she asked after a minute.

  ‘S–o–r–r–y,’ Connolly supplied, and watched as the child wrote, in her crabbed and untaught hand: I am sory.

  She just hoped she was.

  FIVE

  How Beautiful are the Feet

  ‘Is that all there is?’ Atherton asked disparagingly, fingering the file.

  ‘It’s a bit meagre,’ Slider agreed.

  ‘Thin as an adulterer’s excuse,’ said Atherton.

  ‘You should know,’ Swilley mentioned.

  ‘Don’t be illogical. You can’t commit adultery if you’re not married.’

  ‘You’d be pushed to commit adolescentry,’ said Swilley with unusual sharpness. ‘Time you grew up.’

  ‘Children,’ Slider chided them. ‘Shall we concentrate?’

  The file was grubby, the cardboard softened with age, the pages inside faded. And above all, there was not nearly enough material there. It had all the appearance of something put aside and forgotten for many years, something that had never expected to be resurrected. You could almost imagine someone taking out a sheet at random to use as scrap paper, to jot something down on. This was what lay at the far end of those huddled bones in their shallow grave.

  ‘To summarize,’ Slider went on, ‘Amanda Jane Knight, age fourteen, went missing twenty-five years ago. Only daughter of Ronald and Margaret Knight of 15 Laburnum Avenue.’

  ‘They were the ones before the Barnards,’ said Hart.

  ‘I’ve not found ’em yet,’ said Fathom.

  ‘Maybe you won’t have to,’ said Hart. ‘Kid goes missing, bones turn up. Can’t be a coincidence.’

  Slider resumed. ‘Ronald Thomas Knight was a self-employed plumber, age fifty-four.’

  ‘So he was forty when Amanda was born,’ said Atherton. ‘That’s a late start. Unless there were others before her?’

  ‘Only child,’ said Slider. ‘Mother, Margaret Emerald Knight, née Pirie, age forty-seven.’

  ‘Thirty-three when she had the kid,’ said Atherton. ‘Elderly parents.’

  ‘Mother worked nine to six Monday to Friday in the Jiffy Launderama on Uxbridge Road, doing service washes and taking in and handing out dry cleaning.’

  ‘They sound like respectable people,’ Lessop offered. ‘We’re not talking about a rackety young couple on drugs likely to kill their own sprog for a thrill.’

  ‘Probably was the dad, though,’ McLaren said, peeling the silver paper from a slightly melted Kit Kat. ‘Always is, innit.’

  ‘Boss,’ said Hart, ‘when you say “went missing” …?’

  ‘She disappeared one Saturday afternoon from her own back garden,’ said Slider. ‘No one saw her leave, and she was never verifiably seen again.’

  ‘Yeah, but she didn’t leave, did she? She was there all the time.’ Hart looked round the others. ‘That’s where she was found.’

  Slider frowned. ‘I know it’s tempting to think that, but there is a difficulty. You’d have to be suggesting that someone came into the garden, killed her, dug the grave and buried her, all in broad daylight, and without anyone noticing anything.’

  ‘The Trees Estate counts as the suburbs,’ Atherton said, ‘and people in the suburbs never notice anything, even when it’s right under their noses. They don’t even know their neighbours’ names.’

  ‘It’s technically possible,’ Slider said, ‘but nobody would do it that way.’ He let them think about that. ‘Even if the killing was spur-of-the-moment, or accidental, the killer wouldn’t set about digging a grave right there and then. He’d conceal the body somewhere and do the digging later.’

  ‘In the shed,’ McLaren said indistinctly.

  ‘Can’t hear you through your breakfast,’ Swilley said.

  ‘S’not my breakfast. S’my lunch,’ McLaren corrected.

  ‘That’s what I like about you, Maurice,’ Swilley said sweetly. ‘Always ready to go the extra meal.’

  ‘The problem with the shed is that the police were bound to have searched it,’ said Slider. ‘It seems more likely that she left the garden for some reason and was snatched, or waylaid, killed, and hidden somewhere for a time.’

  ‘Her dad could have picked her up outside in his van. Kept her there. If he was a plumber, he must’ve had a van,’ LaSalle said eagerly.

  ‘He did. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’

  ‘But if it was done outside the garden, whoever did it musta brought the body back,’ Hart complained. ‘That dun’t make sense. Even if it was the dad. He’d’ve buried her somewhere out in the woods or something, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Well,’ said Slider reluctantly, ‘if it was the father, he might have felt more secure about doing the digging on his own land. He’d know the ground, what the soil was like, where to find a spade, whether he could be overlooked. He’d know who, if anyone, was likely to disturb him. It would depend how intelligent he was.’

  ‘And how cool,’ said Swilley. ‘Your average murderer’s like a headless chicken. Rational thought doesn’t come into it.’

  ‘Unless he’d done it before,’ said Lessop.

  Slider nodded. ‘Yes, there is that possibility. The more victims a killer has, the more cold-blooded he gets about it. We’ll have to look him up, see if he had any criminal record.’

  ‘Wasn’t that done at the time?’ Atherton asked.

  ‘There’s nothing in the file about it. We can’t assume,’ said Slider. ‘The other possibility for a person who would bring the body back to the garden, would be a relative or close family friend, someone who knew the layout.’

  ‘That’d be a bastard trick,’ said Hart. ‘Landing the parents with the corpse of their own kid.’

  ‘But guv, the police at the time would see the freshly-dug earth,’ said Mackay. ‘I know there was a water butt on top, but they’d still have noticed, surely?’

  ‘Again, it doesn’t say here,’ said Slider, ‘but assuming that there wasn’t any freshly-dug earth, that means—’

  ‘The body was brought back after the police had done the garden,’ said LaSalle. ‘A relative or close family friend who was keeping up with things’d know when that was.’

  ‘Were there any relatives?’ Swilley asked.

  Slider turned a page. ‘Knight was an only child. Mrs Knight had a sister, Patricia Pearl Pirie, aged forty-two – five years younger. Married to Brian Bexley, an estate agent.’

  ‘Ah, the sinister uncle,’ said Atherton. ‘When it’s not the father or stepfather, it’s always the uncle. Was Uncle Brian interviewed?’

  ‘Doesn’t say. There’s just their names, and the address – 27 Lupus Street, Acton Vale.’

  ‘Just a 207 bus ride away,’ said Atherton. ‘So here’s a thought – Amanda’s bored on her own in the garden on Saturday afternoon, decides to go and visit aunty. Aunty’s out, Uncle gets too friendly—’

  ‘There’s no point—’

  ‘Or she gets picked up at the bus stop by a stranger and done away with,’ LaSalle joined in eagerly.

  ‘—in speculating like this,’ Slider managed to finish. ‘There are a thousand pos
sible scenarios. We’ve got to trace these people—’ he tapped the meagre file – ‘and start afresh.’

  ‘You’re right. I was just doodling,’ Atherton apologized.

  ‘We need to find the Knights, the Bexleys, and the neighbours at the time.’

  ‘Land registry. Electoral roll,’ said Swilley. ‘Census returns.’

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt to keep trying to find the Barnards as well,’ Slider said to Fathom. ‘It’s a long time to have a garden and not find the body in it.’

  ‘Right, guv.’

  Slider felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, and turned to find Porson standing in the doorway between his room and the CID room. He wondered how long he’d been there. The old boy could move like a cat when he wanted to.

  ‘Horse’s mouth,’ Porson said.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘There’s not enough in that file. I had a look when it came over. You don’t know who was interviewed and who wasn’t. You’ll have to go back to the horse’s mouth. Who was the SIO?’

  ‘The Senior Investigating Officer was Detective Inspector Trevor Kellington,’ Slider read. ‘His supervisor was Detective Superintendant Edgar Vickery.’ He looked up. ‘I don’t know either of them.’

  ‘Before your time. Before mine, too,’ said Porson. ‘I’ve heard of Kellington – he was at Fulham a year or two when I was at Chelsea. Great big bloke. Had a good reputation. Vickery I don’t know. He’d be older. Could be dead by now. See if you can get a line on Kellington. I fancy Mitchell Baxter over at Hammersmith might remember him. He might know where he is now. Find Kellington and pick his brains.’

  ‘He might not remember,’ Lessop was unwise enough to remark.

  Porson’s eyebrows snapped together like two stags locking horns. ‘He’ll remember,’ he barked. ‘Little girl goes missing on your watch, never seen again. That’s a nightmare seraglio. You never forget a case like that. Those are the ones you like awake at night sweating for.’

  ‘Boss, can I have a word?’ Connolly said as everyone dispersed.

  Slider invited her into his office, and she told him about Julienne Adams. She watched the frown develop between his brows as she spoke, and hastened to add, ‘I talked to the police officer on the case. The store detective had left it up to him and he was fine with the approach, and he got in touch with the social worker, and she came over to escort Julienne back to the home. I did everything by the book.’

  ‘But you didn’t. She’s a minor. You shouldn’t have interviewed her alone.’

  ‘She wouldn’t give her name or age or anything until I got there, so technically they didn’t know she was a minor.’

  ‘Technically!’

  ‘And I wasn’t really interviewing her. She called me in as a friend.’

  Slider sighed. ‘I know you meant well, but you can’t be too careful in these cases. If a complaint were lodged against you, it could be very serious for you.’

  Connolly let a corner of her anger show. ‘The kid’s got no one! She turned to me for help, and I’m supposed to tell her to get lost?’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘That’s how these kids get into this mess, because everyone’s too scared to use their common sense.’

  ‘Don’t rant at me, constable,’ Slider said mildly. ‘I’m not responsible for the system.’

  She breathed out hard through her nose, remembering that he had done his own share of regs-breaking in good causes. ‘Sorry, sir. I know you’re on my side.’

  ‘I’m just warning you to cover yourself. If anything like this happens again, get the social worker in first.’

  Connolly gave a wry smile. ‘She hates the social worker. She likes me. I think I can be a good influence on her.’

  Slider said nothing, and she felt compelled to add, into his receptive silence, ‘I told her I’d visit her sometimes.’ She hadn’t meant to tell him that. Oh, so that’s how it works, she thought.

  Slider gave her a level look. ‘What you do in your own time is your own affair,’ he said. ‘But I would advise you not to get involved.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Connolly admitted. ‘But I’ve seen it back home, good kids going bad for want of anyone paying them just a bit of attention.’

  ‘Back home – in Dublin, you mean?’ Slider asked lightly. Connolly was famously tight-lipped about her personal life and her past, and seemed to be on the brink of revealing something.

  But she only grinned and said, ‘I didn’t mean me, boss. Jaysus, I was so good, it’d sicken you.’

  DI Trevor Kellington had long since retired. Mitchell Baxter at Hammersmith, who had indeed worked under Kellington at Fulham, remembered him.

  ‘Hard to forget him. He was a hell of a big bloke, six-four or five,’ he told Slider. ‘Not heavy, I don’t mean, but powerful, massive hands he could crack nuts with. Great big head and a great beak of a nose. When he stood up with his head thrown back, he was so imposing, he could scare the shit out of a slag just by beetling his brows.’

  ‘But what was he like as a policeman?’ Slider asked.

  ‘Oh, he was all right,’ Baxter said with a slight diminution of enthusiasm. ‘He was straight, you know. Hard-working, careful. But a bit lacking in imagination. A by-the-book man. Not a whole barrel of laughs, if you get my drift.’

  ‘Any idea where he is now?’ Slider asked.

  ‘None, sorry. But he’ll be on a pension, if he’s still alive. The pension admin will have an address.’

  Of Edgar Vickery he had no memory or knowledge. ‘Before my time.’

  ‘One’s enough to be going on with,’ Slider said to Atherton in the car.

  ‘Kellington was the SIO, so he’ll have the more hands-on knowledge anyway,’ Atherton agreed.

  Kellington was widowed, and was living in a house near Tring with his daughter, son-in-law and youngest grandson. It was a small, modern house in pinkish brick the colour of salmon pâté, on a raw-looking new estate. The daughter met them at the door, a patient, faded woman, so bland in every aspect it was hard to remember, the instant you turned away, what she looked like. She had evidently given her whole life to being a wife and mother and, latterly, carer of the elderly, so that over the years their demands had worn her smooth, as water rubs away at a pebble.

  Behind her in the cramped hallway lurked the grandson, a lanky youth in tracksuit bottoms, T-shirt and bare feet, who gave them an aimless grin when they caught his eye and then hastily slunk away. Slider wanted to ask him why he wasn’t at work on a weekday, but sadly felt he knew the answer.

  ‘Dad’s through here,’ the daughter said. ‘You won’t upset him, will you? Only, if he gets in a state, he can’t breathe. It’s his emphysema.’

  ‘We won’t upset him,’ Slider said soothingly. ‘We’re just here to pick his brains, about the people in an old case.’

  She nodded, not entirely appeased. ‘He’ll remember. He’s got a wonderful memory for his old cases. Always did have a wonderful memory for names and faces.’

  ‘Yes, we heard that,’ Atherton said mendaciously. He smiled, and she looked faintly startled. Atherton’s smile could have that effect on females.

  She seemed to grope for an appropriate response to it, looked at him and away, and finally said, in softened tones, ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

  ‘That’d be nice, thanks. If it’s no trouble,’ Atherton said.

  She beamed. ‘It’s no trouble. I’ll be making it for him anyway. Come this way, won’t you?’

  ‘I hope I’m getting tea as well,’ Slider whispered into Atherton’s ear as they followed her. ‘What do you do to women?’

  ‘It’s a gift,’ Atherton murmured back.

  ‘Give it back,’ Slider suggested.

  ‘Visitors, Dad,’ the daughter announced, and stood aside to usher them into the narrow through-room. Kellington was in an armchair at the far end, by the French windows that looked out on a small, careful garden whose most lively feature was a bird table enjoying brisk traffic. The form
er giant was now gaunt, with sunken cheeks and blue lips, and he breathed like a broken-winded horse. He didn’t smoke any more, but his right hand twitched and jumped constantly as if blindly seeking that sustaining tube, as a piglet noses for the teat. He was wearing an old-mannish grey cardigan over an open-necked white shirt, and grey flannels, and his feet looked both enormous and pathetic in crimson velvet carpet slippers where there should have been shiny black boots, capable of kicking down doors. How were the mighty fallen! At the sight of him so reduced, Slider found a limerick running unbidden round his brain.

  There once was a copper called Kellington,

  Who looked like the old Duke of Wellington.

  He pounded the street

  With his size nineteen feet

  And wore himself down to a skellington.

  Without turning his head, Kellington said, ‘Goldfinch. Two of ’em. They always come in pairs. It’s called a charm. Charm of goldfinches.’

  They moved into his line of sight.

  ‘Like birds?’ he said. ‘I could watch ’em all day.’ He gave a wheezy, mirthless laugh. ‘Not much else to do. Pull up a chair and sit down. You’ll be Bill Slider. Mitch Baxter rung me and said you were coming.’ He passed rheumy – but nevertheless still copper’s – eyes over them, pausing a little over Atherton as if unsure where to put him in the filing system. Atherton was an anomaly – too smart, in both senses. ‘What’s your name, son?’ he asked. The ‘son’ was meant as an insult, to see how he would react.

  Atherton bore it nobly. After all, he reasoned, Kellington would soon be dead. ‘Detective Sergeant Atherton,’ he replied. ‘Jim.’

  ‘Come in through the university programme, did you, Jim?’ A casual tone, a disingenuous question.

  ‘Hendon,’ Atherton said, returning the look steadily. ‘The old way.’

  Kellington relaxed, all except his right hand, which jumped towards his pocket and away. This would have been the moment to hand round fags, cementing the trust. Instead, he reached with his left hand into his cardigan pocket and brought out a handkerchief, carefully to wipe his eyes. ‘All right,’ he said, just as if they had all lit up. ‘What’s it about?’