by K Leitch
Helen and Tracy finished up their coffees and went their separate ways. Helen had promised Maya that she would pick Andy up from school that evening, as Maya had a staff meeting, so she headed straight there without going home first. Helen and her Polish wife Maya had been fostering Andy for a few months now and he had become a beloved member of their family. A family which consisted of the two toddlers, Abby and Benji, Sophie, Maya’s nineteen year old daughter, and Lena, Maya’s mother, who was an invaluable help in looking after their growing brood. Never in her wildest dreams could Helen have imagined how full and lovely her life would become, all in a matter of five years or so. She was truly contented, and fully aware of how blessed she was.
Her phone bleeped as she pulled into a space near the school, it was Lena, Maya’s mum, asking when she would be home.
JUST PICKING UP ANDY…WON’T BE LONG X. She replied and was just putting her phone away when it rang…Lena again.
‘Hi Lena, are you ok?’ she began.
‘Helen…Helen is that you?’ Lena whispered urgently down the phone.
‘Of course it’s me…you called me, what’s up?’ Helen replied shaking her head at the phone.
‘I don’t think is good idea that you bring Andy here for a while,’ Lena hissed, ‘Someone is here…’
‘Who’s there…what’s happened Lena?’ asked Helen getting alarmed.
‘A lady…she just push her way in, she says she must speak with Andy. I say to her he is not here, but she just sits down and says she will wait till he is home…’
A worrying suspicion entered Helen’s head. ‘Did she say who she was, why does she want to see Andy?’ she asked.
There was a long pause before Lena said, ‘I think she is mother Helen…Andy’s mother.’
Helen heaved a sigh; she had known this day would come. ‘Right don’t worry love I’m coming home…I won’t be long I promise.’
Helen phoned Maya, briefly told her what was going on and to keep Andy with her. Then she turned the car around and headed home as fast as she could.
CHAPTER 11 - 1969 Exerts from the diary of Una Flannery
…Missy, the girl I shared a room with, was a dark, thin, awkward girl with huge eyes and buck teeth. She had been born in Liverpool but her parents were from Trinidad, this might have been why she was treated the way she was. She was a kitchen help, what would have been called a scullery maid in the olden days. It basically meant that she did all the dirty rotten jobs that nobody else wanted to do. Missy took the brunt of everybody’s irritation or frustration. She was shouted at, slapped round the head, bullied and pushed from pillar to post all day long and not just by the cook. Harry, the head porter, would shove her out of the way if ever he was passing through the kitchen and picked on her if she so much as raised her eyes in his direction.
‘What the fuck’s she looking at,’ he would snarl. ‘Bloody freaks me out the way she stares at me with those big voodoo eyes.’ Missy learnt to keep her eyes lowered.
Even Barney the gardener, who was pretty cheerful and pleasant to most people, would join in.
‘What’s that fucking smell?’ he’d say if she happened to be in the room when he came in for his tea break, ‘smells like something’s died in ‘ere.’ Missy would quietly leave the room.
I felt sorry for the girl and tried to befriend her. She told me about her mammy and daddy. Her daddy worked in the dockyard; she had three sisters and a brother. Her brother was away in the army, she showed me a photograph of him in his uniform. He was smiling at the camera; poor fella had the same buck teeth as his sister. I showed her pictures of my cat Oscar and our cottage. She couldn’t believe that there were only seven houses and a pub in our village, and that I had had to walk the three miles into Limerick to go to school each day.
We never talked about that awful bully Mr Silco, I avoided him whenever possible. If I did happen to run into him, he would be sure to say something nasty or push up against me and pin me to wall. Once he had me up against the wall on the top landing and he grabbed hold of one of my breasts. He pinched my nipple really hard, staring at me with a nasty smile on his face all the while. I managed to wriggle away and he laughed his head off as I scurried back down the stairs. I hated him; he was the worst kind of bully.
I soon began to realise though, that I was getting off lightly when it came to Jonas Silco. Missy was getting it much worse than me poor girl. Several times I had seen that she had been hiding bruises. If I asked her about them she would just wrap her arms around herself and give me some lame excuse, like she’d bumped into a door or slipped on the stairs. Then one night I was woken by muffled groans and moans coming from Missy’s bed. I went over to see if she was OK and I couldn’t believe the state of her. He face was all puffed up and her lips were split and bleeding, it looked like she’d taken a real beating.
I tried to find out who had attacked her, but she became so agitated with my questions that I thought she might do herself more harm if I kept on at her. But when I pulled back the covers to help her to the basin to wash her cuts I couldn’t help but let out a gasp of horror. The bedclothes were soaked through with blood. I told her she must tell someone, she needed to go to hospital. She got quite violent then, pushing me away from her and telling me to leave her alone and mind my own business. I pleaded with her to let me help, but she was adamant. So I let her be…although I did change her bed linen and found a clean nightgown for her to wear once she had washed.
We never spoke about it again, we didn’t speak about it the next time it happened either, or the next…
CHAPTER 12 - CARLA
‘Right…settle down you lot,’ Carla paused as the chatter subsided. ‘Okay, well it seems we have a murder investigation on our hands.’ She turned and indicated the white board that had been set up at the end of the incident room. It was covered with photographs of the skeleton that had been uncovered the week before and some blow ups of the skull and neck bones. ‘Dorothy has had no luck identifying him yet but we do know a bit more than we did last week.’ Carla paused and, pen in hand, she began to write on the board as she talked. ‘He is a white male, 60-65 years old and contrary to what we thought earlier that death was caused by a massive trauma to the back of his head, Dorothy now believes that he had his throat cut and bled out.’ She turned back to the group. ‘She’s come to that conclusion based on the huge amount of blood traces that were found on the plastic sheeting but also if you look closely at these blown up images, you should be able to see what appear to be nicks on the cervical vertebrae, more specifically on the bone marked C1.’ Carla pointed out the nicks on the blown up photo stuck to the white board. ‘It now seems likely that the great huge hole in his skull was caused by the digger when it unearthed him. She is working to try and narrow down what sort of knife was used but the best she can guess at the moment was that it didn’t have a serrated blade, the cuts were too neat for that. She will try and narrow it down a bit more for us by the end of the day.’
‘That sounds like a pretty tall order after all of this time,’ said DC Midge Jones, looking closely at the photographs.
‘Yes I suppose so, and the chances of us actually finding a murder weapon now are pretty thin,’ Carla said, ‘but I guess it’s all information and you never know it may be crucial if and when we find whoever did this…’
‘How many years ago are we talking Ma’am, twenty…twenty five?’ asked DC Mandy Hopkins.
‘Well no apparently not quite as long as that, luckily for us some little remnants of his clothing was still with the body and there was a label, M&S would you believe. Susan Hemple, with the forensic team has been working her little cotton socks off and was able to extract a serial number from the label and she got a result from the people at Marks and Spencer, apparently that particular shirt was only available for one springsummer season in 1997. Now obviously that doesn’t necessarily mean that he was killed in ‘97, he could have bought the shirt a couple of years prior to his death but Dorothy sent the bon
es and hair away for carbon dating and guess what…1996-7.’
‘Ok well I’ve been looking into the site where the body was found and that fits in rather well,’ said DS Frank Hill coming up to the front. ‘Up until 1999 that piece of land was derelict, it used to be the site of the old cinema but that was destroyed by a fire in 1992 and the land then remained empty until 1999 when the council decided to tarmac it over and turn it into a car park. It was bought earlier this year by property developers ‘Macy and Sons’ who have plans to build 12 luxury apartments on the site.’
‘Ok so we know roughly when he was killed and buried, maybe we need to find out who would have had access to that land, would there have been any security on it at that time? We need to speak to the people that lived in the surrounding houses and flats…maybe our victim lived close by. Does anybody remember someone disappearing for no good reason all those years ago? Did he drink in the local pub, did he work nearby? These are all the questions that we need to be asking.’
‘I’ll tell you what strikes me as a bit weird Ma’am,’ said Midge again. ‘He was only wearing a shirt…where were his trousers, shoes etc?’
‘Yes, good point Midge,’ Carla said. ‘Obviously it could be that the rest of his clothing has rotted away, we were very lucky to have some tiny bits of it after all these years. But the fact that there was absolutely no evidence of any other clothing buried with the body leads me onto something else that forensics threw up. It seems that underneath the body of the skeleton and in amongst the blood on the plastic sheeting and also interestingly inside the pelvic cavity, there were some pieces of china, enough for forensics to believe that it was some sort of figurine. Not enough has survived unfortunately to tell us exactly what it was exactly but…’
‘Hang on,’ Midge said laughing. ‘Are you saying that at the time of his murder, someone shoved some sort of china figurine up his bum?’
‘Well… yes, that is what forensics are suggesting,’ said Carla. ‘Which means that this becomes a much more complicated case, I mean was it a rape gone wrong…or some sort of sexual revenge, your guess is as good as mine until we find out who this man is. Only then can we start looking for reasons and only then do we stand a chance of finding our killer.’
‘What about reconstructions…can’t forensics do all that stuff Ma’am… if they’ve got a skull like?’ DC Sam Tranter asked. ‘I saw a program on telly, just last week actually, where this woman had recreated some woman’s head out of clay, it was dead good she’d put in eyes and everything…’
‘You’ve been watching too much bloody CSI matey,’ said Carla with a laugh. ‘Yes of course it is possible for a reconstruction to be done, but we don’t have the budget for that. It costs a bloody fortune and it would take weeks anyway. We will nevertheless be putting out a computer generated image of our man; Stuart Hog is working on that as we speak and it should be available by end of play today. Our best shot however is with dental records, we’ve posted details of our skeleton’s dental work online and we just have to hope that someone recognises it. Of course we’ve got DNA from the blood but unless our man is in the system that won’t necessarily help us. Also…and I know you’re going to hate me when I say this Mandy,’ Carla said turning to DC Mandy Hopkins.
Mandy groaned and put her head in her hands. ‘Don’t tell me… missing person’s files, do you want me to go national or just concentrate in this area?’
‘Oh just this area to begin with I think,’ Carla said with an apologetic smile. ‘You never know we may get lucky.’ She turned back to the rest of the group. ‘Midge if you could liaise with forensics, they are busy trying to trace the makers of the china figurine, so you’ll need to follow up on any leads they might find. Okay for the rest of you, you know what you’re doing so let’s get on with it. The sooner we find out who this chap is the sooner we can start looking for his killer.’
Carla waited until the room emptied a bit before going over and speaking to Frank. ‘Finding this figurine or whatever it is, changes this murder from a simple smash over the head robbery or killing in the heat of the moment don’t you think Frank? Our murderer planned the way this man was going to die; he pushed something up inside him for a reason…to make a point maybe…’
‘Unless this is just an over enthusiastic sex game of some sort,’ Frank said, ‘maybe this fella ended up badly injured and the other bloke panicked and decided it would be easier to slit his throat than try and explain what happened at a hospital.’
‘Yes…possible I suppose, seems a bit violent though don’t you think?’ She held her hand up as Frank started to answer, ‘OK, OK I know sex can be pretty violent, but I get the feeling that he had a reason for shoving whatever it was inside his victim. Yes sexual maybe…or something that was only relevant to him, it might help if we knew exactly what this thing was,’ Carla said pouring herself a cup of coffee, she gestured to Frank to see if he wanted one.
‘Brilliant thanks,’ he said taking the cup she offered him. ‘I feel half asleep today, Linda’s got us both roped into this bloody play, she is desperate to play Lucinda Lovett.’ He smiled at Carla’s raised eyebrows, ‘I know I never suspected there was such an ambitious diva lurking inside her either. So anyhow we were up till the early hours running through the part so that she can be word perfect for next Friday.’
‘Why?’ Carla asked, ‘what’s next Friday.’
‘Carla really,’ said Frank shocked. ‘Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten that it is the grand auditions next Friday…shame on you. I’m sure Rosie hasn’t forgotten, I’m surprised she hasn’t been pestering you day and night about it.’
Carla had the grace to look shamefaced. ‘Well actually I’ve left it to James to deal with,’ she laughed as Frank shook his head at her. ‘Oh come on it’s hardly my sort of thing is it…and James is so much better qualified that I am, I think he’s quite enjoying it actually…sees himself as Inspector Johnstone I think.’
‘Well he’ll have a fight on his hands,’ Frank said with a laugh. ‘That’s the role Linda has earmarked for me, and I can tell you now she is a very determined lady, James had better watch his back!’
Carla laughed, ‘Ha…she hasn’t come up against my Rosie yet has she.’ She drained her coffee and stood collecting her coat from the back of her chair. ‘Right, can’t put it off any longer, I suppose we better get over to the mortuary, see if Dorothy’s come up with anything more, and then I think we should check with the local council offices, see if they’ve got any records of who owned the land before they covered it with tarmac.’
CHAPTER 13 - TRACY
Tracy sat nervously outside the headmistress’s office trying to keep calm.
‘Stop being such a stupid idiot,’ she told herself furiously. ‘You can do the job standing on your head…what’s there to worry about?’ She shook her head in disgust at her apprehension and took her mirrored compact out of her bag to check her makeup yet again.
She’d heard about the position becoming available just a couple of days earlier, from an old friend of hers that still worked at the school. It was her old job, the one that she had given up to have Zack four years ago. Working in the offices at the local primary school, the same school that she had attended as a child, the same school where she’d met Simon only five years earlier and the same school that Zack was attending now. She knew the place inside out…so why was she so nervous?
Well the head had changed, that was one reason. The new head, a Miss Gerrety, had already gained the reputation for being a bit of a tyrant; a stickler for punctuality and a neat freak. Tracy was honest enough with herself to know that timekeeping and tidiness were not her strengths; nevertheless she wanted this job desperately. Now that Tilly was old enough to be looked after by Nora, a few hours each day back in her old school, away from nappies and children’s TV sounded like heaven to Tracy.
The office door opened at last and a tall, gaunt looking, middle aged woman dressed in a navy two piece came out, she turned and sh
ook Miss Gerrety’s hand. ‘It has been so lovely seeing you Shauna,’ the woman said with a stiff little smile, ‘and I look forward to working with you again.’
‘Oh definitely Rebecca…lovely to see you too,’ Miss Gerrety said shaking the proffered hand before disappearing back into her office.
‘Oh definitely Rebecca,’ mimicked Tracy, looking down ruefully at her faded skirt and scuffed shoes. ‘Fat chance I stand getting the job now,’ she thought bitterly.
‘Tracy?’ Miss Gerrety said from the doorway, making Tracy jump out of her reverie. ‘Would you like to come in now?’ she said smiling as Tracy, taken by surprise dropped her handbag spilling its contents all over the floor.
‘Oh God…sorry,’ she spluttered, gathering together old lipsticks and sweet wrappers and…oh no how embarrassing, a leaflet she had idly picked up at the family planning clinic, on genital warts and how to avoid them. Tracy shoved everything back in the bag and scuttled into the office sitting in the chair opposite Miss Gerrety.
‘I’m so sorry Miss Gerrety…’ she began.
‘Oh call me Shauna,’ Miss Gerrety said, ‘if we’re going to be working together we needn’t stand on ceremony.’ Tracy tried to thank her but she cut her off with, ‘How long ago was it that you were here before Tracy?’
‘Um about five years ago, I left to have my eldest Zack…’
‘Oh yes of course,’ Shauna went on. ‘And we have Zack here with us now don’t we…in Mrs Downey’s class…’
‘Yes that’s right; he loves it here actually…that’s why when I heard my old job was…’
‘And you have another child; a daughter…is that right?’ Shauna interrupted again.
‘Yes Tilly…or Matilda actually but everyone calls her Tilly, she’s just over a year now so I thought it was time I…’