Salton Killings

by Sally Spencer

  “Yes, she is,” May Thorburn echoed.

  Her voice startled Davenport. She had been so quiet, so shadowy, that he had forgotten she was even in the room. He turned to look at her and watched, disconcerted, as her face twisted into a mask of hatred.

  “A good girl, Margie Poole,” she said. “Not like that wicked, wicked mother of hers.”

  The canal towpath was of hard clay, mottled with cobblestones made smooth and shiny by the hoofs of generations of tow-horses. The horses had gone forever, Woodend thought sadly. It was all diesel now, farting little engines that chugged and coughed their way from one place to another. There was no grace in it any more, no majesty.

  The path was bone dry, but some of the stones were so slippery that he almost lost his balance.

  “Must be a bugger in the rain,” he said to himself. “You’d have no problem fallin’ into the water.”

  The land to his left sloped downwards. It looked a normal enough scene, grass, scrub and a occasional clump of trees, but beneath its apparent solidity, the earth was honeycombed with shafts, hacked out by sweating miners leading blind pit ponies. In places, the ground had begun to subside and was fenced off by stark wooden poles with cruel strands of barbed wire stretched tightly between them. And inside these compounds bushes and flowers were being sucked slowly, inexorably, down towards the great gaping hollows below.

  He reached the wood. It was so far below the level of the canal bank that the tops of the trees only reached his waist. Woodend stretched to reach the nearest branch and plucked a leaf. It felt cool and fresh in his fingers; moist, full of juicy life, but now he had pulled it from the tree, it would die.

  Something glinting in the sun made Woodend blink. He looked around, but could see nothing that could have caused the reflection. He moved his head to the side, and caught the glint again. It was coming from the long grass at the edge of the path. He bent down to take a closer look. The shiny object was a jam jar, sparkling clean, its label neatly removed. A pile of small stones had been heaped around it, presumably to stop it blowing over. And in it, their stems covered with water, were six freshly cut tulips.

  Now why the bloody hell would anybody bother to do that? Woodend asked himself.

  The sun was climbing, and the Chief Inspector was beginning to feel hot. He took off his jacket, loosened his knitted tie and, when he saw a steep path leading down into the wood, decided to take it. It would be cooler under the trees.

  There had been woods near his Lancashire home too – he supposed that was how his family had originally got their name. He had played in them as a child and later, towards the end of the Depression, had courted his wife there. It all seemed so long ago. They had been married in 1940, when he was called up, and now had a thirteen-year-old daughter conceived in the first flush of passion after five years separation. His own little Pauline would be wandering through the woods soon, with a handsome lad who would make her father feel as jealous as hell. But Diane Thorburn wouldn’t – ever. Someone had decided that she would never have the chance of experiencing the joys and heartbreaks of growing up. Someone had taken on himself the power of God, and ended her life.

  “I’ll get you, you bastard,” Woodend said angrily.

  They had got off on completely the wrong foot, Rutter thought. Partly, he admitted, it had been his fault. He was fully aware that his apparent air of confidence and direction sometimes offended people. He had developed it in his early days at the grammar school, when it was all he had going for him, and now he found it difficult to give it up. He would try, he promised himself, really try to be quieter, more deferential, less crisp.

  But Woodend was also part of the problem. He had been antagonistic from the start. True, he’d been rough with Davenport when they first met too, but their relationship had soon settled down. Because they were both sec. mod. boys, because they were both northerners. It was just like the grammar school; inverted snobbery this time, but snobbery neverthless. If he was ever going to convince Woodend that he was good, he would have to be the best. Very well, he had done it before and he could do it again. He squared his shoulders and marched up to the mock-Tudor building that served as Maltham Police Headquarters.

  Inspector Holland was in the canteen, a cosy oak-panelled room, enjoying his mid-morning cup of tea and bun. Rutter sat down opposite him and passed across the list of boats moored outside Brierley’s the previous Tuesday.

  “The Daffodil, The Bluebells of Scotland, The Iris and The Oriel,” Holland read, between mouthfuls of pastry. “Keen on flowers, these lot, aren’t they? What does Oriel mean?”

  “Search me, sir,” Rutter said, although the name did sound vaguely familiar. Wasn’t it something to do with applying for university?

  Holland dunked his bun in his tea.

  “I’ll put out an APB on ’em,” he said, “but they’ll be a bugger to track down. They’re like Romanies – go where they want, when they want.” He lowered his voice as people do when they are going to say something heretical. “Between you and me, I’d be happier if we ran things like they do on the continent – files on everybody. It was the worst thing we ever did, scrappin’ identity cards after the war.”

  “So you don’t know when you’ll be able to get your hands on them, sir?”

  Holland took a slurp of his tea.

  “You may be in luck,” he said. “Wolverhampton Council’s stockin’ up on salt at the moment. That’s probably where these narrow boat people took it. They may just unload and come straight back.”

  “And how long should that take?”

  Holland pursed his brow and began to do calculations on his fingers. His lips moved as he counted.

  “Sometime tomorrow, I should say.” He looked at the bare place in front of Rutter. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. Where’s me manners. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  Rutter was on the point of saying no, he didn’t have time, he was investigating a murder. Then a warning voice in his head whispered, “Slow down. Get in training for Woodend.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he said, smiling at Holland. “Very kind of you, I’m sure.”

  From the wood, the path took the Chief Inspector through the scrub he had observed from the canal. It was a twisting, turning track, much less direct than the route along the towpath. The chimney at Brierley’s, now operating at full pelt, came into sight first, and then the rest of the works – stark, square, black with industrial grime. As he got closer still, he could distinguish the houses, the backs of those on Maltham Road, the ends of the terrace that made up Harper Street.

  He couldn’t see over the brick walls that enclosed the back yards, but he knew what they would contain. There would be a wash house with the dwelling’s only tap, a brick boiler that would be fired up every Monday, washing day, and a tub into which steaming water would be poured so the clothes could be dollied. At the end of the yard would be the outside lavvy, so sneeringly referred to by Rutter, which people ran to on cold winter evenings and sat on, shivering, until they had done what they had to. He himself lived in a suburban semi with an inside toilet, his wife had a washing machine with an electric wringer. If promotion to superintendent ever came through and he found himself earning the dizzy sum of £1,315 a year, they might even think of buying a detached house. But he hadn’t forgotten what it was to live like the people of Salton.

  The walk had given him a thirst and at five to eleven he was stationed outside the George and Dragon, listening in anticipation for the sound of the bolts being drawn back. Across the road, a group of pre-school children were playing hopscotch on the pavement. Woodend watched with pleasure as a small girl leant forward, licking her lips with concentration, and threw her piece of slate at a chalked square several feet away from her.

  “In!” she shouted gleefully, and set off on one foot to retrieve it.

  It was not unusual to see children in the road only two days after a murder, but Woodend would not have been surprised, either, if the street had been deserted. You never
knew how a community would react to the killing of a child. In some, there was almost instant hysteria, with parents virtually barricading themselves and their offspring in the house. In others, people acted as if nothing had happened and, though they did not know it, they were in a state of shock. But sooner or later a woman would snap out of it, and rush from her home screaming her child’s name, and the waves of her terror would awaken the other mothers. The Chief Inspector hoped to God that he could solve the killing before that happened in Salton.

  A tall man, dressed in black, suddenly appeared at the crown of the humpbacked bridge. The sun, shining behind him, seemed almost to give him an aura. He stopped and glanced into the canal, then began to stride down the bridge towards the village. As he got closer, Woodend could see him in more detail. Not only were his suit and trilby black, but so were his tie and thick waistcoat. Woodend wondered how he could stand to be so heavily dressed on such a warm day.

  The man was tall and lean, and though the white hair which flowed from under his hat suggested age, he held himself ramrod stiff. He came to a halt in front of the children. His shadow fell over them and they stopped their game and gazed silently up at him.

  “Little children,” he said, “you know not what you do.”

  He was trying to speak softly and gently, Woodend thought, but there was an intensity behind his words that turned them into the wrath of God.

  “Do not play the Devil’s games,” the man boomed. He stretched out his arm. “Go seek out your mothers, that they might lead you to Jesus.”

  Still mute, the children turned and began to walk slowly down Maltham Road. By the time they had crossed Harper Street, they were skipping.

  An’ as soon as they’re out of sight, down Stubbs Street, Woodend thought, out’ll come the chalk again.

  The man watched the children for a while, then swung round to look at the pub.

  “That’s all I bloody needed,” Woodend said, under his breath.

  He turned and read the sign over the door: ‘Harry Poole, licensed to retail ales and stouts . . .’

  “Deny the Devil and all his works,” said a voice just behind his left shoulder.

  Sighing heavily, Woodend turned again. The speaker had an impressive face: a broad forehead, a large nose, and blazing blue eyes. But there were also lines, deeply etched into his brow and around his mouth, that made him look as old as God himself. He seemed like a man who had chosen to carry the whole weight of the sinful world on his shoulders.

  “Do not enter this evil place,” the man said. “Have the strength to say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’”

  Woodend briefly toyed with the idea of a theological exchange, then dismissed it. So what if Christ drank wine himself, even lavished a miracle on producing some when regular stocks ran out. People like the man before him had a knack of being able to blot out anything that did not fit in with their own rigid beliefs. Besides, it was a pint he wanted, not an argument.

  “I think you’d better go home, sir,” he said in his best village bobby voice. “Strictly speakin’, you’re causin’ a public nuisance.”

  “You are hard of heart,” the man said, “but fear not. The Lord in His infinite mercy has the power to melt even stones.”

  To Woodend’s relief, there was the sound of bolts being drawn. The pub door swung open, revealing a short, dour man of about forty, with thinning, pale, sandy hair. He was wearing a collarless shirt and a cardigan. He glared at the man in black, gave Woodend an only slightly more welcoming look, and retreated into the bowels of the pub.

  Woodend followed him. The man in black stepped forward and then stopped, as if the threshold of the pub presented an impenetrable barrier which even in his zeal he could not cross.

  In the public bar, Woodend found not the morose man who had admitted him, but a stunning woman in her early thirties. She had black shoulder-length hair and coal black eyes, set off by delicate pale skin. Her mouth was warm and generous, her lips inviting and seductive.

  “What’s your pleasure, luv?” she asked.

  You know already, Woodend thought, but I’ll settle for a drink.

  “A pint of bitter, please,” he said.

  The woman stretched up to reach for a pot, then placed it under the tap. She wrapped her long fingers around the pump and persuasively but firmly pulled it towards her. She slid the pint across the bar, and Woodend placed half a crown in her hand. She walked over to the till and rung it up.

  She was wearing a straight fawn skirt, its hem just above knee level, and an emerald green blouse that some might have considered a size too small but Woodend thought was just fine. Her legs were slim without being skinny, and if the rest of her body had put on a little weight over the last few years, that was all to the good.

  She placed his change on the counter, and favoured him with a friendly smile.

  “You’ll be that Chief Inspector – up from London.”

  “You’re remarkably well informed,” Woodend said. “You even got my rank right.”

  Most women would have looked guilty or blushed. This one just laughed.

  “There’s not much I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not that I’m nosey, but you can’t miss it. If you think women are gossips, you should listen to the fellers in here after they’ve had a few pints. So, what do I call you? Chief Inspector?”

  “Woodend. Charlie Woodend. And you’d be . . .?”

  “Liz Poole, the landlady. You’ll already have met my husband.” She glanced over her shoulder towards the corridor. “The miserable old bugger.”

  She spoke the words without rancour, as if she was merely stating something that should be obvious to everybody.

  “Aye,” Woodend said drily, “I have.”

  “Are you gettin’ anywhere with your investigation?” Liz Poole asked.

  There was an intensity in her voice that was more than just idle curiosity. Her face was transformed too: it was strained, almost haggard, as if a black cloud had blocked out her sun. There could only be one reason for that.

  “It’s early days yet,” he said, gently. “I’ve only just arrived.”

  She forced a rueful smile to her lips.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ve not even had time to look around yet, and here I am mitherin’ you. Only . . .” concern crossed her brow once more, “I’ve got a daughter, an’ I worry.”

  So he had been right about her expression.

  “Course you worry, luv,” he assured her. “What mother wouldn’t? But I don’t think you need be bothered about anything happening to your little girl.”

  She smiled again, a half-amused, half-mocking grin that had nothing forced about it.

  “My little girl,” she said. “Sup up. You’ve just earned yourself a pint on the house.”

  He would have liked to have taken advantage of her offer and stayed longer, but he had things to do. There was half a pint still left in his glass and he drank it with one deep swallow.

  “I like a chap who can knock back his ale like a man,” Liz Poole said.

  Maltham Police Records Department was situated in the basement of the Headquarters. The room was badly lit and stuffy. The filing cabinets had an air of neglect, the files in them seemed thin on material, and the material itself was badly presented.

  “If they’d give me the run of this place for just six months . . .” Rutter thought.

  It was a different world from the Yard Central Records Office. He had put just one call through to them, and they had been back with the information he wanted less than twenty minutes later. Only one of the boat owners who had been in Salton the day Diane Thorburn died had a criminal record. Jackie McLeash – city of origin: Glasgow – had done six months some years earlier for receiving stolen property, which scarcely made him a prime suspect in a murder case.

  He flicked through the records of sexual offenders. Flashers, peeping Toms, fathers who had seduced their daughters. They were a pitiful bunch. Then he came across the case of Fred Foley,
a Salton man, and felt his pulse quicken. A few years earlier, Foley had enticed a girl under the bridge by the salt works and asked her to let him feel her up. When she had refused, Foley had thrown her into the canal. But as he read on, Rutter felt the heavy weight of disappointment descending on him. Pushing a girl into the water on the spur of the moment was a very different thing from cold-bloodedly planning in advance to strangle one. Besides, Foley hadn’t followed it through. He’d stood there and let the girl climb out of the canal again.

  It was not enough to take back to Woodend.

  Rutter cross-referenced the sexual offences files with individuals’ named files, jotted down the details of other crimes and cross-referenced again, his search taking him from Breaking and Entering right through to Vandalism. Nothing.

  His mouth was parched, he could feel the sweat clinging to his body, but still he would not give up. There had to be something else. He started searching for the something else in all the sections he had not previously checked. He found it in a dusty file stored in the drawer between Larceny – Grand, and Negligence – Criminal.

  Davenport delivered his report in a dull, flat monotone. He had checked out the workers at Brierley’s. None of them had been absent for anything like ten minutes between ten fifteen and eleven fifteen on Tuesday morning, he had their foremen’s words for that. A few discreet questions had confirmed that none of the foremen had slipped away either. He had talked to the Thorburns and got the name of Diane’s best friend.

  “It’s all good work, Constable,” Woodend said, “but your attitude’s wrong.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re sulkin’, Davenport. You’re takin’ it as a personal insult that I’ve requested the help of Cadet Black, aren’t you?”

  Davenport shifted uneasily in his seat.

  “I think I know as much about the village as he does, sir, an’ I’ve got more experience.”

  Woodend clasped his hands, laid them on the desk, and leaned forward.