A pattern.
He’d thought it, but hadn’t seen it. With only two victims it would be difficult to see the big picture. But not impossible.
Well, he could try. Bloody hell, he had to try. And try damned hard.
Brewing up a particularly strong cup of coffee, he cleared his desk of all papers apart from those that dealt with the details concerning the two dead girls. Slowly he went through them, hoping that he could note down any similarity between them, anything, however small, that might link them. After half an hour he was struggling. The girls were roughly the same age. Their birthdays, May and July, were two months apart. However, they lived in different parts of the town and attended different schools. Gillian’s father was a motor mechanic and her mother was a dental receptionist. Angela’s father was an accountant and her mother worked as his secretary. The couples were not likely to socialise: they did not know each other and their social circles did not merge in any way. The girls both appeared to be average students at school. It seemed that Angela had some facility for music. She played the piano. That was about it.
Pattern? What pattern?
With a sigh he gazed down at the blank page of his notepad.
God, there had to be something.
Something.
He studied the notes again.
Some forty minutes later, Paul Snow left the building with the little seed of an idea planted in his brain. He had little hope that it would flower, but he would tend it carefully the next day.
The following morning was one of those bright spring days when the blue skies and sharp yellow sunshine led one to believe that summer had arrived early, until you felt the sharp edge to the wind that rustled the new leaves, chased scraps of paper down the pavement and cut through your clothing like a knife. Snow was in the office early. He was a poor sleeper at the best of times and when on a difficult investigation he found it impossible to sleep on beyond six. So he decided he would shower, breakfast and come into work. It was pointless just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. And today he had that seed to attend to, to nurture with a bit of luck.
However, he had to wait for the arrival of DS Susan Morgan before he could take things further. She was on time as usual but he waited for her to grab herself the first tea of the day before calling her into his office. Initially there was an awkward moment between them. Snow could see from her apprehensive looks and uncertain body language that she was unsure what he was going to say to her. To allay her fears that he might be about to touch on the personal conversation of a few days previously, he lifted up his case notes to indicate this was a business matter.
‘I’ve been going through the background of the two girls,’ he said. ‘And I thought you might be able to help me.’
‘Oh,’ she seemed genuinely surprised.
‘What do you know about the Marsdale Youth Choir?’
Susan looked surprised. This was certainly not the kind of question she was expecting.
‘Marsdale Youth Choir?’ she repeated, her brow gently wrinkling.
Snow nodded.
‘Well, as far as I know it no longer exists. After the accident.’
‘The accident. Oh, the coach crash.’
‘Yes, it happened last winter. It was a kiddies’ choir. Girls around the ages of nine and ten. They’d been entered into a competition over Manchester way. On the way back, their minibus crashed. A lot of the poor devils were killed.’
Snow nodded slowly. He was reminded that Melanie Bolton had mentioned the crash. Her daughter had been friends with one of the victims. For some reason Snow felt a small tingle of excitement.
‘Why are you interested?’ asked Susan.
Snow pursed his lips. ‘Gillian Bolton and Angela Cleeves had both been members of the choir.’
‘Really. Do you think that’s significant?’
Snow shrugged. ‘Possibly not, but as far as I can see that is the only slender thread that links the two girls.’
‘Slender.’
‘Can you get me the newspaper files on the accident and any other info on the choir? Presumably there are some adults still around who were involved.’
‘Yes, sir. Will do,’ she said. Her whole demeanour had altered now she was clearly and firmly in her role as police officer. Susan was very comfortable with this, and with a brisk movement, she left the office.
Within an hour, Susan had returned with a series of photocopies from the Huddersfield Examiner relating to the Marsdale Choir and the accident. Susan, in her usual efficient fashion, had organised them in date order.
Snow thanked her, grabbed himself a coffee and closed his office door, which was a sign to the other officers that he didn’t want to be disturbed unless it was urgent. He then sat down to pore over the cuttings.
The first one read:
MARSDALE TOTS CONTENDERS FOR CLARION PRIZE
Huddersfield’s prestigious youth singing group, the Marsdale Choir, have entered the Clarion Music Festival in Manchester in October. The group, made up of twelve young girls between the ages of nine and eleven, have already won some local trophies, including the Honley Singing Cup at the Honley Feast, and have high hopes of bringing away a prize from the Manchester competition. Choir mistress Mrs Gloria Niven (62) said the girls were very excited at entering the competition and were determined to prove their worth over the border in Lancashire. Marsdale Choir was only formed eighteen months ago but already it has achieved great acclaim and success. Part of the reason for the Choir’s success is the mix of old and modern music in their repertoire. ‘We tackle anything from Handel to the Beatles,’ said Mrs Niven. There is now a long waiting list to join the choir, especially as they are booked to appear on BBC’s local news programme Look North this Christmas with a fresh take on Irving Berlin’s seasonal favourite, ‘White Christmas’.
The second cutting included a picture showing the mangled remains of a minibus lying in a ditch in a moorland setting.
TRAGEDY ON MARSDALE MOOR
Eleven killed in terrible crash in fog
A tragic accident occurred last night in thick fog on the top of Marsdale Moor. A minibus, which was carrying the twelve members of the Marsdale Choir and some of their parents, skidded on the wet road surface in the fog and turned over and crashed down into a gulley. The driver, Francis Halford of Bradley Mills Lane, was killed along with the choir mistress, Mrs Gloria Niven of Greenlea Road, Slaithwaite. Seven young members of the choir also died in the crash, along with two parents: Mrs Aileen Dudley and Mrs Linda Green. The survivors were taken to Huddersfield General Hospital and were treated for comparatively minor injuries and allowed to go home.
A third cutting followed:
MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR THE
MARSDALE CRASH VICTIMS
The Reverend Archie Foster, vicar of Marsdale Parish Church, conducted the Memorial Service on Saturday for the victims of the horrendous crash which cruelly took away the lives of seven young girls, all members of the Marsdale Choir: Anne Green (10), Elaine Halstead (10), Lorna Blake (9), Brenda Truscott (11), Debbie Hirst (11), Zoe Blackmoore (10), Christine Dudley (11). Also amongst the fatalities were the driver, Francis Halford, Choir Mistress, Mrs Gloria Niven, Mrs Aileen Dudley and Mrs Linda Green.
The choir had just competed in the Clarion Music Festival in Manchester and were travelling home in a minibus when it ran into a patch of fog and crashed.
Thomas, the husband of Mrs Niven, was due to read a eulogy at the service but was too ill to attend. Rev Foster said that it would be many years before the dark shadow cast by this dreadful event would be erased. He praised the work of Mrs Niven and expressed his deepest sympathy for the parents who had lost their beloved daughters. Many left the church in tears.
Snow sat back and sighed. It was a terrible story. He remembered it but it had not really impinged on his consciousness. He had been involved in a complex investigation at the time and his mind and energies had been focused on that. He stared down at the cuttings again. Was there anyth
ing there? Two of the girls had been in the Marsdale Choir. They had survived the horrendous crash. They would have known each other. Was that a coincidence? Or …?
He pondered this conundrum for a while and then suddenly he sat back and gritted his teeth.
Time to get off my backside, he thought.
After his morning’s activities, Snow grabbed a late lunch at the County: a beef sandwich and a half of Tetley’s while he mulled over the events of the morning. He had visited both the mothers of the murdered children to ask them about the Marsdale Choir and if the two girls had been friends. It had not been a fruitful mission. According to Melanie Bolton, her daughter had mentioned Angela Cleeves but only in a disparaging way. ‘I think Gill thought she was a bit stuck up. They certainly weren’t mates.’ On the other hand, Mrs Cleeves had told him that her daughter had never mentioned ‘the Bolton girl’ at all. Neither parent had been at the concert in Manchester. If drawing a blank was an effective way of spending your morning, thought Snow, he’d done rather well.
Still the Marsdale Choir aspect of the case was, at the moment, the only glowing ember in a fairly dead bonfire, so he might as well blow a bit harder on it. Once he’d digested his rather dry and gristly sandwich, he planned to visit Thomas Niven, widower of the choirmistress.
The Nivens’ house was a tidy bungalow on a quiet road on the outskirts of Marsdale, about four miles from Huddersfield. It always surprised and pleased Snow that once you had driven from the crowded centre of Huddersfield and were only a few miles from the town, on whichever road you took, you hit the countryside. Wooded hills rose around you, along with purple, rock-strewn moorland. You soon left the urban for the rural. To him they were complementary environments and in many ways it was what kept him in Huddersfield.
Marsdale was a charming community which, although close to Huddersfield, kept itself to itself. On his previous visits there, Snow has sensed that there was an air of insularity here borne out of self-preservation. They didn’t want to be contaminated with town folk and their ways. There were no supermarkets or the usual imprints of the national high streets here. It was all small individual shops, run by locals – the butcher, the baker and, probably up a side street somewhere, a candlestick maker. Here was a simpler, old-fashioned way of living. The inhabitants seemed to relish that they were a little behind the times. Snow sympathised with their philosophy.
Snow made his way up the path, which cut its way through a neatly trimmed lawn, rang the door chimes and waited. A voice behind the frosted glass door called out: ‘Just a minute, I’m coming.’ Moments later, it opened to reveal a tall, thin man, stooped with age, with grey, lanky hair and a pair of steel-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose. He had a copy of the Daily Telegraph in his hand. Snow noted that it was folded at the crossword page. The man was dressed in cord trousers, a checked shirt and a fawn cardigan. He wore a pair of carpet slippers which looked too big for his feet.
‘Yes?’ he said, peering over the top of his glasses.
Snow held up his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Snow. I was wondering if I could have a word, sir?’ He didn’t, as some officers did, just hold up the card and snap ‘Police’ in an officious manner. Not only did he regard that as rude, mildly offensive, but he knew that it put people either on edge or on the defensive – neither attitude being conducive to extracting the right kind of information from the interviewee.
Mr Niven peered at the card. ‘A word? What about?’ He seemed confused.
‘The accident and the choir.’
Niven groaned and ran his hand across the lower part of his face. ‘Oh, Lord, not that again. Haven’t I suffered enough? My wife was killed in that crash, you know.’
Snow nodded. ‘I know, sir, but I think you might be able to help me with an investigation I’m involved in.’
‘Investigation? What investigation?’
‘Perhaps I could come in and talk to you, sir.’
Niven sighed. ‘I suppose so.’
The sitting room to which Niven led him was somewhat untidy. It was, the policeman supposed, lacking the woman’s touch. Snow was aware that when a man had been looked after all his life, he found it difficult to cope with the same precision on his own. And there didn’t seem to be much point any more anyway. There was no one to see, was there? It had been the same with his father.
‘Do move those magazines and sit down. You are an inspector, you say?’
‘Yes, Detective Inspector with the West Yorkshire Police, based in Huddersfield.’
‘I see. This must be serious then. Would you care for a cup of tea?’
‘No, that’s all right.’
Niven dropped into his armchair with another sigh. Snow could see that he was relieved not to have to fuss about in the kitchen, preparing mugs of tea and no doubt searching for some errant digestive biscuits to accompany them.
Snow assumed that Niven was in his late sixties, but he had the movement and demeanour of a much older man. He remembered the newspaper report which stated that he had been too ill to attend the memorial service for the crash victims. Maybe it wasn’t just grief that kept him away but something more physical.
‘Well, how do you think I can help you?’
‘First of all, can you tell me about the Marsdale Choir?’
‘Ah, that was my wife’s pigeon. She should be here to tell you all about that.’ He paused as though he had just realised what he’d said and he turned his head away and his body shook slightly. ‘My God, I wish she was,’ he muttered into his hand.
Snow waited a moment and then carried on matter-of-factly. He knew this was the best way to counteract that kind of emotion. ‘I’m sure you helped her a lot with the youngsters.’
‘Oh, yes, yes, I did.’ He half-smiled. ‘Well, I did as I was told. I was the unofficial gopher. Gloria had taught music at the local junior school until she retired early. She had quite a good little choir there and so she thought she’d try and set up an independent girls’ choir and see if … to use her words … to see if they could “go places”.’ His grey face softened and he chuckled at the memory. ‘She wanted the best, mind you. She was a stickler for perfection. That was the secret of her success. She held auditions and the candidates came from all areas of Huddersfield. Well, she had a bit of a reputation did my Gloria. Well deserved, too.’
Snow nodded. ‘I am sure.’
‘That was about two years ago and it wasn’t very long before things started to happen. We won a few local competitions and then we started going further afield. The real success was the repertoire, you know. It was very broad and varied: a bit of “All in an April Evening” followed by some silly pop tune. There was no one else doing that. It was all Gloria’s idea.’
‘How were you involved?’
‘As I said, as a dogsbody.’ He gave a half-hearted salute and smiled but the sadness never quite left his eyes. ‘I helped to arrange things in the background but I had nothing to do with the music side. I’m tone deaf. Can’t hold a tune to save my life.’ He gave another chesty chuckle.
‘Did you get to know any of the girls?’
Thomas Niven raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Their characters and their individual talents. You must have got to know some of them quite well.’
‘Not really. I was a backroom boy. Never went to rehearsals and that. Ran a few of them home sometimes but I was Mr Paperwork and Mr Phone Calls.’
‘Did you know Gillian Bolton and Angela Cleeves?’
‘Ah,’ said Niven, his eyes widening, ‘so that’s where this is going. The two lasses who have been killed.’
Snow said nothing.
‘I didn’t know them. I knew of them. I saw them and I may have exchanged a few words with them, I suppose, like you do. But that’s all.’
‘Did your wife say anything about the girls?’
Niven thought for a moment. ‘I believe she thought the Angela girl was particularly talented but a bit of a madam
. My Glo ran those rehearsals like a military campaign. From the moment the girls arrived until they left, it was work, work, work. That’s why they were so bloody good. There was no time to chit chat or fool about. I doubt if any firm friendships sprang up through the choir.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the concert in Manchester on the night of the crash?’
‘I wasn’t well enough. I was recovering from chemo. I had cancer. I’ve still bloody well got it. Some bugger up there deemed it appropriate that I should carry on living in discomfort while my Gloria, who had nothing wrong with her and so much to give, should die.’ Angry tears now rolled down the old man’s ashen features and he clenched his hands together in a desperate attempt to control his emotions.
These scenes embarrassed Snow. He never knew what to say. He felt sorry for Niven, empathised with him even, but he knew that nothing he could say would ease his pain. That practical rationale prevented him from reaching out in any sentimental, empty-gestured fashion to Niven. He should have brought Susan with him. She knew how to handle these situations. She could with great skill and remarkable facility both comfort and elicit information from the distressed interviewee.
‘It were terrible, y’know. That crash,’ Niven said suddenly, sniffing back the tears, his back straightening as he stared ahead of him, as though he was witnessing the accident in his mind. Although he hadn’t been there, Snow assumed that he must have formed images of what happened from all the reports he had heard and read. ‘Seven girls died that night,’ he continued. ‘Seven young lives snuffed out. Terrible. Most of the parents had gone by car to Manchester because there wasn’t room on the coach. Aileen Dudley and Linda Green drew the short straw. They copped it, along with the driver. Mind you, I reckon he was to blame, y’know. He was obviously going too fast. It’s a bad road at night over the tops, especially in the dark, and susceptible to mist patches. He’d have known that. And they found alcohol in his bloodstream, y’know, so he’d obviously had a drink or two. How could he? In charge of a bus full of youngsters? The bastard.’
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