Salton Killings

by Sally Spencer

  “I understand,” Woodend said.

  “I used to see her playin’ with the other kids in the street. You could tell they didn’t care whether she was there or not. An’ she always looked awkward an’ unhappy, as if the game didn’t really matter to her. It’s difficult to explain . . .”

  “You mean the other kids were playin’ a game, and she was playin’ at bein’ their friend?”

  “That’s it, sir.”

  “What about Kathleen Walmsley?” Woodend asked.

  “Oh, Diane an’ Katie were as different as chalk an’ cheese. They––”

  Woodend raised a hand to cut him off. As different as chalk and cheese. Someone else had used exactly the same words to him earlier in the week. But it hadn’t been a reference to Katie. They hadn’t even known about her then. Now who . . .? He looked up from his musings and saw that the others were looking at him expectantly.

  “Sorry, Blackie,” he said. “Carry on.”

  “Katie wasn’t all that pretty, but she was very popular. She had freckles an’ a turned-up nose. Her hair was like a pixie’s an’ she had an impish little smile. When you saw that smile, you knew you were in for some fun. I was in love with her when we were little kids, all the boys were. But the girls liked her too. She was that sort of person.”

  “Were her parents strict with her?” Woodend asked, looking for a link.

  “You mean like Mr Wilson an’ Mr Thorburn? No, sir. By the time she was twelve or thirteen she was goin’ out with lads who were already workin’. Her mum an’ dad didn’t mind. I don’t mean they didn’t care, they just trusted her. She wasn’t the sort of lass who’d . . . come to any harm.”

  But she had. At the bottom of a slimy canal.

  “Tell me about Jessie,” Woodend said softly.

  Black squared his shoulders and took a deep breath.

  “She was the best of the lot. She was beautiful. She had green eyes – deep, deep green – and long hair the colour of ripe corn. I used to love that hair. When I was a kid, I used to brush it for hours an’ hours. She must have got fed up with me doin’ it, but she never complained. She always had time for me, did our Jessie.”

  The ashtray was full of dog-ends. Woodend picked it up and emptied it into the wastepaper basket, then lit another cigarette.

  “She was cleverer’n me,” Black said proudly. “She passed for the grammar school an’ she was top in everythin’. You should have seen her reports. She wanted to go to university . . . she was goin’ to be a doctor . . . she . . .”

  “It’s all right, lad,” Woodend said. “We’ll leave it there for now.”

  Black gave him a sad, grateful smile. There were tears in his eyes.

  “We don’t know for a fact that your sister was murdered,” Woodend said, “but it seems more than likely. I had to put you through this, but I don’t want to cause you any more pain. I’m goin’ to ask your super to reassign you to normal duties.”

  Black wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket.

  “It’s very good of you, sir,” he said, “but if somebody killed our Jessie, I want to help you look for him – an’ I want to be there when you find him.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “The Walmsleys live on Seddon’s Row,” Black said. “You can’t get there by road.”

  “Can’t get there by road?”

  To Rutter, brought up in the suburbs, the idea was incredible. Everything could be reached by road.

  “They’re old tied miners’ cottages that were sold off when Seddon’s Pit closed down,” Black explained. “If you like, we could take the car some of the way up the cartroad, but the track peters out well before the woods, an’ we’d have to go the rest of the way on foot. Or we could walk along the canal – that’s quicker.”

  “Is that the stretch of canal where Katie Walmsley drowned?” Rutter asked.

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Then we’ll go that way.”

  It was an almost cloudless afternoon. They moved along the path at a brisk pace. A few days earlier, Rutter would have considered the walk a waste of time, but now he was not so sure. Stepping on the stones over which Katie Walmsley had taken her last ride didn’t tell him anything new, at least nothing he could put his finger on, yet in a peculiar way it was useful. It was like the difference between seeing a play on a completely bare stage and then watching the same play performed with scenery. Even though the backcloth was only painted, it still made the characters seem more real.

  The Cloggin’ It School of Detection, he said to himself, thinking of his chief.

  They were both silent until they drew level with the wood, then Rutter said, “Mary Wilson was strangled down there, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Do people still keep away from it? Do they think of it as an evil place?”

  “Not really,” Black said. “I mean, they might have done just after the murder, but it didn’t last long. Our Jessie used to bring me down here when I was a little kid and there was always plenty of folk about – families havin’ picnics, kids playin’ hide an’ seek, old fellers exercisin’ their dogs . . .”

  “And courting couples?”

  “Oh aye, it’s always been a favourite spot with them.”

  Seddon’s Row came into view, a terrace of solid brick houses, each with a garden front and back.

  “The Walmsleys live in the end one,” Black said.

  The cadet knocked on the front door. It opened slightly, seemingly by an invisible hand. Looking down, they saw a girl of seven or eight, staring at them in wide-eyed astonishment.

  “Our Betty,” she called over her shoulder, “there’s a bobby outside.”

  There was a scampering of feet and another girl, perhaps two years older, appeared and pushed her smaller sister out of the way.

  “It’s not a bobby, our Joan,” she said scornfully. “It’s only Phil Black.”

  As if remembering a lesson, her face assumed the smile of a gracious hostess and she swung the door open wider.

  “Won’t you come in, Mr Black?” she asked.

  Betty led the two policemen down the corridor, while Joan skipped in front chanting, “The bobbies are comin’, the bobbies are comin’.” A woman appeared at the kitchen door, wiping floury hands on her apron.

  “Hello, Mrs Walmsley,” Black said.

  She was in her late thirties, Rutter estimated objectively, but she had a vivacity about her which made her seem much younger. He noticed she had a trim figure too, although usually he had no interest in older women.

  She smiled.

  “Inspector Black! We are honoured. An’ who’s the handsome young man you’ve brought with you.”

  Rutter stepped forward.

  “I’m Sergeant Rutter, Mrs Walmsley. We’ve come to ask you some questions about Katie.”

  A change came over the woman immediately. Her mouth drooped, and the wrinkles around her eyes seemed to deepen. But the look lasted no more than a second or two and, as her face regained its liveliness, Rutter found himself questioning whether he had seen it at all.

  “Aye well,” Mrs Walmsley said, “you’d best come into the kitchen. I don’t hold with entertainin’ people in the front room. It’s not natural, is it? Anyway, you could probably do with a cup of tea.”

  The kitchen was painted in a cheerful green, and sunlight flooded in through its large window. There was a smell of fresh bread, and more dough was being prepared on the scrubbed wooden table.

  “Sit yourselves down,” Mrs Walmsley said, “an’ mind the sleeves of your nice uniform in that flour, Superintendent Black. It’ll not take me a minute to brew up.”

  When the tea was poured, she sat down opposite Rutter.

  “So what’s all this about?” she asked. “What exactly has Katie’s death got to do with Diane Thorburn’s murder?”

  Sowerbury had met all Highton’s attempts at humour with blank stares.

  “He’s pissed off with me,” Highton thought, “an
’ I can’t really blame him. If I hadn’t been sarky with the sarge about gettin’ a haircut, we’d never have landed this job in the first place.”

  And a shitty job it was. Salt had managed to find its way everywhere. His neck itched and when he walked tiny granules dug into the soles of his feet. His throat felt as it had been taken for a long hot march across a barren desert. And still the pile they had checked was minute compared to that still left to do.

  Highton watched lethargically as more salt fell through the narrow mesh and cascaded to the floor. It was a pointless task. They would never find anything – there was nothing to find. And then he saw it!

  “Hang on a minute!” he said urgently, and Sowerbury stopped shaking.

  The object would have been easy to miss. Though not as brilliantly white as the mineral that surrounded it, it was still quite pale. And scores of individual grains of salt were sticking to it, adding camouflage. He wasn’t even clear how big the thing was, because most of it was still buried.

  Highton dug his hand carefully into the salt about two inches from his find. The sieve wobbled.

  “Hold still, Sowie,” he said. “We might have somethin’ here.”

  He pushed his hand slowly inwards. The important thing was not to break it, whatever it was. His fingers touched it. The object felt rubbery and slimy. It didn’t seem very big either, no more than a few inches long. And it was very thin.

  His hand groped blindly under the surface of the salt until he was sure that it had it surrounded. Gently, he lifted it out. Once his hand was clear, he opened it again to examine his prize. When he saw what he was holding, he immediately dropped it to the floor.

  Highton stared at his outspread palm for a second, made an instinctive move to wipe it on his overalls, then recoiled in disgust. Sowerbury bent down to inspect the object. When he stood up again, there was a grin on his face.

  “How you doin’, Sticky Fingers?” he asked.

  “That’s bloody revoltin’,” Highton said, scrubbing at his palm with a piece of old sacking. His hand felt horribly sticky. Still, he was pleased to hear that the warmth was back in his partner’s voice. “You’d think they’d find somewhere better than this, wouldn’t you?” he continued. “I mean, it’s not exactly the honeymoon suite.”

  Sowerbury gingerly touched the used contraceptive with the toe of his boot.

  “Shaggers can’t be choosers,” he said. “D’you think we should tell the governor about this?”

  Highton didn’t want anybody hearing the story. If it got out at the police station, he would be ‘Sticky Fingers’ until the day he retired.

  “Let’s just forget it,” he said. “Woodend’s not goin’ to be interested in somebody’s bit on the side.”

  “Don’t just lie there cryin’,” his father had once said to young Charlie Woodend when he had fallen off his bike. “Get your arse back on that saddle now, or you’ll be terrified of cyclin’ for the rest of your life.”

  Good, solid advice. That was why he’d sent Black straight out to interview the Walmsleys – to get his arse back on the saddle. Besides, he wanted the cadet well out of the way when he talked to Mr and Mrs Black.

  The house was in the middle of Stubbs Street. Its door and windows were freshly painted. The small front garden was neat and colourful; an ornamental windmill turned languidly in the slight breeze that was blowing from the east.

  “Young Phil does all this, sir,” Davenport said, almost in a whisper. “Has done ever since he was eleven. If it was left to his mum an’ dad, the place’d go to rack an’ ruin.”

  The door was opened by a small, grey-haired woman. She was wearing a dark brown dress that looked as if it had once belonged to someone much larger, and had a cardigan draped over her shoulders. She couldn’t be as old as she looked, Woodend thought, and still be Blackie’s mother.

  “Mrs Black?” he asked. “I’m Chief Inspector Woodend. Has Phil mentioned me?”

  The woman nodded vaguely, and pulled the cardigan tighter around her emaciated body.

  “We wanted to ask you a few questions about Jessie,” Woodend said.

  The old woman’s body seemed to grow smaller and smaller, until the cardigan hung like a huge, swamping overcoat. She did not move, she did not speak.

  “Let ’em come in,” said a strangled voice behind her.

  Mrs Black turned, without a word, and the policemen followed her.

  Heavy net curtains clung to the windows, excluding the sun. A fire blazed in the grate, yet the room felt cold. The air of desperation and helplessness was so thick, it was almost choking.

  Mr Black was sitting in the corner of the sofa. He was tall and gaunt. One side of his face was paralysed in a look of despair, one hand lay uselessly by his side.

  “I can’t get up,” he said, more as an admission of defeat than an apology.

  His mouth twisted as he spoke, the right-hand side contorting to form the words without the assistance of the left. Thick white stubble grew even on the dead side of his face, a flake of tobacco was stuck to his numb lips.

  Woodend sat down opposite him, Davenport moved over to the window as if hungry for what little light there was.

  “Can you tell us about the night Jessie died?” Woodend asked.

  “Oh aye,” Black said. “I can tell you about that, all right. Me an’ Jessie were on our own. Our Phil was just gettin’ over pneumonia, and his mum had taken him to stay with her auntie in Southport. Jessie stayed late at school, she had the leadin’ part in the school play. An’ it was a proper play an’ all – Shakespeare. It was called Twelfth Night.”

  Then she would have been Viola, Woodend thought, the talented beautiful heroine who had so much love for her brother. A line of the play drifted into his head – ‘She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to draw remembrance again with more.’ There were salt tears enough in this house.

  “She was always stayin’ behind at school,” Black continued. “Hockey, Science Club – if it wasn’t one thing it was another. She’d be too late to catch the Salton bus, so she’d leave her bike at a mate’s house in Claxon, catch the Ashburton bus, and come back along the canal.”

  He reached with his good hand for a cigarette. His wife, like a wandering ghost, drifted across the room, lit it for him and then melted away again.

  “This particular day, I knew our Jessie wouldn’t be home till six, so when I knocked off work I went straight to me pigeon loft. I was so busy I didn’t notice the time, an’ when I did look at me watch it was nearly seven. Well, I rushed home but Jessie wasn’t there. An’ she was never a lass to be late, she always had a lot of homework to do. I went down to the phone box an’ called the school, but there was nobody there by then.”

  Cigarette ash fell down the front of his shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice it. His eyes were glazed. He was not really in the room at all, he was back in the phonebox, realising that his beloved daughter was missing.

  “I ran up to the canal. There were some narrer boats moored there, an’ I asked the fellers if they’d seen our Jessie. They’d not have missed her in her grammar school uniform. When they said they hadn’t, I set off for Claxon. I hadn’t gone half a mile when I saw her . . . her beret . . . floatin’ in the canal.”

  “And what did you do then?” Woodend asked.

  “She couldn’t swim, I knew she couldn’t swim. I jumped into the canal. I had to get her out. But it was dark an’ mucky, an’ I couldn’t see a thing. Then I . . . I found her bike. I kept divin’ down . . . but I couldn’t . . . she wasn’t . . . I think I would have drowned if Harry Poole hadn’t pulled me out.”

  “Harry Poole?”

  “Aye, he was takin’ a walk along the canal. I wish he hadn’t been there – I just wanted to be left with our Jessie.”

  “There’s probably no connection between your daughter’s death and Diane Thorburn’s, Mrs Walmsley,” Rutter said, “but we have to cover every possibility. I’m afraid it will be painful for you.” />
  Mrs Walmsley looked straight at Rutter. She had fair hair, deep green eyes and an upturned nose. Katie must have looked very much like her.

  “There’s not a day goes by when I don’t think about our Katie,” she said. “Even now, I can’t bring meself to walk along the canal. Nothin’ and nobody will ever replace her.”

  The noise of children playing drifted in through the window.

  “But I’ve got three other girls,” she continued, “an’ they’re entitled to a life too, so it doesn’t do to dwell too much on the past. Ask your questions, I can stand ’em.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  Mrs Walmsley smiled.

  “She was a grand lass, full of the joys of life. She had lots of friends, boys and girls.” She chuckled. “Course, by the time she was twelve or thirteen, it was mainly boys. I didn’t mind, she was a sensible girl. An’ she was never ashamed to bring her boyfriends home for me to have a look at.”

  “Did she have a special boyfriend when she died?” Rutter asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs Walmsley said. “A very nice lad – from Maltham. He was about her age, too, which was unusual for her. Pete, he was called. Can’t remember his other name.”

  Rutter looked inquiringly at Black.

  “Pete Calloway,” the cadet said. “He was in my class at school. He’s an apprentice in Maltham Engineerin’ now.”

  “And was she with him on the day she died?” Rutter asked.

  Mrs Walmsley shook her head.

  “Katie had a Saturday job, at a hairdresser’s in town. After she’d finished work, she went out with a friend of hers from Salton – Peggy Bryce.”

  “Did she always come back along the canal?”

  “As a rule. When it rains, the cartroad gets muddy and then you’ve to push your bike through the wood. It’s much quicker along the tow path. It . . . wasn’t quicker for our Katie that night.”

  Mrs Walmsley turned away and Rutter noticed her surreptitiously wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.

  As they talked, the sergeant searched for a pattern, something that would connect Katie with romantic Mary Wilson, serious, studious Jessie Black, and lonely Diane Thorburn. There was nothing. Katie had been a happy fun-loving girl without a care – or an enemy – in the world.