A Walk With the Dead

by Sally Spencer

  ‘She’s my daughter,’ Paniatowski said. ‘If you don’t want her to come into the house, she can stay in the car.’

  Being offered a choice in the matter seemed only to add to Mrs Harris’ confusion.

  ‘I don’t know what to . . .’ she began. ‘I mean, it’d be a bit odd – and what will the neighbours think if they see your daughter sitting all by herself in the car, while you’re in the house.’ She pulled herself up sharply. ‘What’s the matter with me? How can I still be worrying about the neighbours when my Jill is missing?’ She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘Come inside, the both of you.’

  She led them into a lounge, which was full of contemporary – and very conventional – furniture, and Paniatowski would not have been the least surprised if Mary Harris had confessed that she’d bought the whole lot from a single stand at the most recent Ideal Homes’ Exhibition.

  ‘I’ve rung all Jill’s friends,’ she said. ‘Every single one of them. Nobody knows where she is.’

  ‘And can you think of anywhere else she might be? Could she have gone out to visit relatives, for example?’

  ‘All her relatives were at the reception.’

  ‘Does Jill have a boyfriend?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘She’s only thirteen!’ Mrs Harris said, almost scandalized.

  ‘Children grow up quicker these days,’ Paniatowski replied, and, not wishing to abandon this possible avenue of inquiry, however eager Mrs Harris seemed to dismiss it herself, she added, ‘Have you noticed if Jill has suddenly started taking an interest in make-up?’

  Mrs Harris shook her head. ‘No, she hasn’t. It’s quite the reverse, in fact. I bought her some as part of her Christmas present – nothing too grown-up, just what all the other respectable girls seem to be wearing – and it’s still in the box on her dressing table.’

  ‘Perhaps I’d better take a quick look at her bedroom, in case there’s some clue there as to where she’s gone,’ Paniatowski suggested. ‘That would be all right, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ the other woman agreed.

  ‘Can I see it, too?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘Why would you want to see it?’ Paniatowski wondered.

  Louisa sighed. ‘Because I’m a kid, just like Jill,’ she said, in a tone which hinted that she considered it a pretty stupid question to ask. ‘Things in the bedroom might look different to me from the way that they’ll look to old people.’

  ‘Would you mind?’ Paniatowski asked Mrs Harris.

  ‘No, no,’ the other woman said. ‘I don’t mind anything if it will help me find out where Jill is.’

  Mrs Harris led them up the stairs. ‘That’s her room,’ she said, pointing to a door which had a hand-painted notice pinned to it.

  Louisa had one of those, too, Paniatowski thought. Hers said optimistically:

  TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

  Jill’s sign was rather different. The brush strokes were angry, and it read:

  IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK.

  ‘Kids have some funny ideas, don’t they?’ Mrs Harris asked, seeing Paniatowski had noticed the sign. ‘I mean, you can’t go through life ignoring other people’s opinions, now can you?’

  Paniatowski opened the door and looked around the room. It was quite like Louisa’s bedroom – the same sort of furniture, the three-quarters sized desk, the bright rug on the floor. And yet there seemed to be something significant missing – and she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

  ‘Where are Jill’s fluffy toys?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘She’s too old to be buying fluffy toys,’ Mrs Harris said dismissively. And then, realising she might have caused offence to this nice little girl, she quickly added, ‘Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with buying fluffy toys. It’s perfectly normal.’

  ‘I didn’t mean new fluffy toys,’ Louisa said, speaking slowly and patiently, as though she accepted that she was talking to someone who was not quite on her level. ‘I meant her old fluffy toys – the ones that she’s had with her ever since she was a little girl.’

  That was it! Paniatowski thought. That was exactly what was missing!

  ‘She threw all those kinds of things out a few months ago,’ Mrs Harris said. ‘She said she was too old for them. She’s becoming a bit of a tomboy, if truth be told. I don’t know what people must make of her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. It’s just a phase all young girls go through, and Louisa was just the same,’ Paniatowski said, knowing that her daughter wouldn’t openly contradict her, but sure that if she looked into Louisa’s eyes, she would see an expression which only just fell short of anger.

  Having found nothing in Jill’s room to indicate where she might be, they trooped downstairs again.

  ‘I’ll get a message to all foot patrols and crime cars to be on the lookout for your daughter,’ Paniatowski promised.

  ‘Is that all?’ Mrs Harris asked.

  ‘Yes. What else were you expecting me to do?’

  ‘Well, I’d have thought that you’d have organized a massive search or something.’

  ‘I can’t do that quite yet,’ Paniatowski said firmly.

  Nor could she. There was too little manpower to cover all the Saturday night crime in Whitebridge as it was, and to pull men off their normal duties in order to search for a girl who might not even be missing would be like issuing the local criminals with a free pass. Besides, it was already dark now, and she knew from experience that night searches were pointless.

  ‘Jill will probably come home when she gets hungry or tired,’ she told Mrs Harris. ‘And even if she doesn’t, you shouldn’t automatically start suspecting there’s something wrong, because I’ve known of cases in which girls have been missing for two or three days, and have turned up again completely unharmed.’

  But not many, she added, as a silent rider to herself. Not even close to half of them.

  ‘If you could just . . .’ Mrs Harris pleaded.

  ‘I’m sorry, that really is all I can do for the moment,’ Paniatowski said, opening the door and ushering Louisa outside. ‘Ask one of your neighbours to sit with you, Mrs Harris. You’ll find that will help.’

  But it won’t help that much, she thought, as she set off down the garden path, holding her daughter’s hand firmly in her own.

  The governor, who had calmed down considerably after Baxter’s apology, reached into his desk drawer and produced an unopened bottle of malt whisky and three glasses with all the aplomb of a conjurer.

  ‘I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,’ he said, as he unscrewed the top, ‘and I think we can all agree that having a distinguished visitor makes it a special occasion.’

  He poured two generous glasses, but as he was about to pour the third, Chief Officer Jeffries said,’ Not for me, thank you, sir.’

  ‘But I thought you enjoyed the odd tipple,’ the governor said, looking a little hurt.

  ‘And so I do, sir,’ the chief officer agreed. ‘More than enjoy it – but I’ve given it up for Lent.’

  ‘Ah, yes, you’re quite right, it is Lent,’ the governor said. He hesitated for a second, then added, ‘You won’t be offended if we indulge ourselves, will you, Mr Jeffries?’

  ‘Of course not, sir,’ the chief officer replied. ‘Every man should be guided by his own conscience in this, as in every other matter.’

  It was an excellent malt, and while the two non-abstainers savoured it, one of them – the governor – talked volubly about football, the weather and his golfing handicap. Baxter, for his part, made the odd comment, but spent most of the time wondering about when, exactly, he should drop his next bombshell.

  The glasses were finally drained – the last few precious drops slipping down as easily as the first.

  ‘Another one, Chief Constable?’ the governor asked.

  Baxter shook his head. ‘No, thank you, I think it’s about time I settled into my accommodat
ion.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course,’ the governor agreed. ‘We’ve booked a room at the pub in Dunston village. It’s not exactly luxury, but it’s the best available, and I’m sure you’ll find it pleasant enough.’

  ‘I probably would find it pleasant enough – but I won’t actually be needing it,’ Baxter said, opening his mental bomb hatch.

  ‘Won’t be needing it?’ the governor repeated, mystified.

  ‘No,’ Baxter said, ‘I think it would be better all round if I lodged here instead.’

  ‘In the prison!’

  ‘That’s right. I rather embarrassed myself earlier by showing a complete ignorance of what goes on here, and since I’d rather not make the same mistake twice, it’s pretty obvious that I need a crash course in what makes it tick.’

  ‘Even so . . .’

  ‘And where better to learn about prison life than in the prison itself?’

  The governor had not even suspected the bombshell until it had actually exploded. But Chief Officer Jeffries had, Baxter thought. In fact, he was willing to bet that Jeffries had been waiting for the bang since the apology which had made his boss feel so much more relaxed.

  ‘The thing is, we don’t really have the facilities for accommodating people here, do we, Mr Jeffries?’ the governor asked.

  But Jeffries was not about to play that game – not when he could see the battle had already been lost.

  ‘We could give you one of the camp beds that the lads sometimes use between shifts,’ the chief officer said. ‘Would that suit you?’

  ‘It would suit me perfectly,’ Baxter said.

  ‘But don’t you think that would be a little lacking in . . . in . . .’ the governor gabbled.

  ‘In home comforts?’ Baxter supplied.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘I get my home comforts at home – which is where I intend to return as soon as I possibly can. Give me a camp bed, and an office you’re not using at the moment, and I’ll be as happy as a pig in shit.’

  ‘Very well,’ the governor said defeatedly. He turned to his chief officer. ‘Could you arrange that, Mr Jeffries?’

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ Jeffries replied, in a crisp, sergeant-major-like voice.

  ‘I’ve never – ever – in my entire life, been a tomboy,’ Louisa said resentfully, as her mother pulled the MGA away from the curb.

  ‘I know you haven’t,’ Paniatowski agreed.

  ‘Then why did you say it?’

  ‘It made Mrs Harris feel a little better – because if a terrific girl like you had been a tomboy, then there was nothing abnormal about her daughter, Jill, being one, too.’

  But Louisa was not about to be bought off with flattery.

  ‘You wanted to make her feel better, so you deliberately told her a lie!’ she said accusingly.

  ‘A white lie, perhaps,’ Paniatowski conceded. ‘But you will admit, it was all in a good cause.’

  ‘The rules have changed, then, have they?’ Louisa asked, unyielding.

  ‘What rules?’

  ‘You told me there was never any excuse for telling a lie.’

  ‘I lied about that,’ Paniatowski confessed, laughing awkwardly. Then, to change the subject, she added, ‘So did you learn anything from Jill’s room, Chief Inspector Louisa?’

  ‘Don’t patronize me, Mum,’ Louisa said sharply.

  ‘Sorry!’ Paniatowski replied – and meant it. ‘Well, did you learn anything from Jill’s room?’

  ‘I learned she has a very big secret,’ Louisa said.

  ‘And what is it?’

  Louisa snorted. ‘If I knew that, it wouldn’t be much of a secret at all, now would it, Mum?’

  ‘All right,’ Paniatowski said. ‘What was it that you saw that told you Jill had a big secret?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything I actually saw,’ Louisa admitted. ‘It was just a feeling I had,’ she rubbed her stomach with her right hand, ‘down here.’

  Paniatowski smiled. A gut feeling! Louisa might not be biologically her child, but she was still a chip off the old block.

  FOUR

  The first thing Baxter noticed when he woke up that Sunday morning was just how stiff he felt.

  ‘You must be getting old, George,’ he told himself. ‘There was a time when you could have spent the night sleeping on bricks, and still sprung to your feet like a randy young ferret.’

  But he wasn’t feeling like a randy young ferret that morning – or even, if he was honest with himself, like a middle-aged ferret that had reluctantly put its years of sexual conquest behind it – and for some moments Baxter merely lay there, calculating which way of getting out of bed would afford him minimum discomfort.

  He settled on swinging his legs off the bed first, and as he stood up, he tried not to wince as his body sent out shooting pains in protest.

  Once on his feet, he looked down and examined the thing he had been sleeping on. It could not be claimed in all fairness that it wasn’t actually a camp bed, he decided – it did, after all, have the necessary parts – but if someone had told him that Alexander the Great had bought it as flood-damaged stock from Noah’s Ark, he would have had no difficulty in believing it.

  It was unlikely that there weren’t better camp beds available in the prison, he thought as he stretched to relieve his aches, which probably meant that giving him this particular one had been a deliberate tactic, designed to change his mind about spending his nights in the prison.

  Well, if that had been the tactic, it had backfired, because he was now more determined than ever to stay exactly where he was.

  He crossed his temporary office/bedroom, and opened the door. He was not surprised to see Chief Officer Jeffries standing in the corridor outside. In fact, he would have been surprised if the man hadn’t been there.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Baxter,’ Jeffries said. ‘I hope you had a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘I slept like a log,’ Baxter lied. ‘Do you just happen to be passing, Chief Officer Jeffries, or have you been standing out here waiting for me?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Jeffries said. ‘I’m here to escort you down to breakfast.’

  ‘An important man like you shouldn’t have to hang around in corridors as if he was a mere errand boy,’ Baxter prodded, to see what reaction he’d get.

  ‘I haven’t been here long,’ Jeffries replied, stony faced. ‘Shall we go down to breakfast now?’

  ‘Is it a good breakfast?’ Baxter asked.

  ‘It’s an excellent breakfast.’

  ‘Sausages, bacon, fried eggs, fried bread – the works?’

  ‘The works.’

  Baxter pretended to consider it.

  ‘It’s certainly a tempting offer,’ he said finally, ‘but my doctor’s told me that if I don’t stay off the fried food, I’m heading for an early grave. So, on balance, I think I’ll skip breakfast and take a look around the prison.’

  ‘You don’t have to have the full works, if you don’t want to,’ Jeffries pointed out. ‘You could just settle for cornflakes.’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I’m not at all hungry.’

  Jeffries frowned. ‘You are expected in the canteen.’

  ‘I dare say I am,’ Baxter agreed, ‘but I’ve always found that you learn more by going to the places where you’re not expected. Let’s go and take a look at the main wing, shall we?’

  ‘If you insist, Mr Baxter,’ Jeffries said, in a tight voice.

  ‘I do insist, my old son,’ Baxter said. He patted the other man on the shoulder. ‘And by the way, since I’m here in an official capacity, I’d prefer it if you addressed me as Chief Constable.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember that,’ Jeffries replied, not even attempting to sound convincing.

  A heavy grey sky hung depressingly over the Whitebridge police headquarters car park, and in the car park itself stood two dozen police officers who had had other plans for that Sunday morning.

  The plans had been as varied as the officers were themselves
. Some had been expecting to take the field in the fiercely contested Sunday football league. Others had made promises to their kids that they’d take them out for the day – or sworn to their wives that they’d finally get around to repapering the back bedroom. A few of the single men had been anticipating a fairly heavy lunchtime drinking session, and a handful of the more devout had even intended to put on their best suits and go to church. Now – as a result of early morning phone calls – all those plans had turned to ashes, and the men stood around stamping their feet to ward off the cold, and waiting to be told what to do next.

  DCI Paniatowski and Chief Superintendent Tom Potter stood side by side at the far end of the car park, waiting for the police transit vans to emerge from the garage.

  ‘Assuming that the little lass decided to sleep rough last night, she’ll have woken a bit stiff this morning, but she’s young, and it shouldn’t have done her any permanent harm,’ Potter said.

  Yes, assuming Jill had slept rough the previous night, that was probably the case, Paniatowski thought.

  But there was another possibility – one never spoken of at the start of this kind of search, but hanging over the whole operation like a thick choking black cloud – that she hadn’t noticed the cold (or anything else for that matter) because she was already dead.

  ‘The men I’ve called in will be reinforced by firemen, relatives and neighbours, so we should have a search party of close to a hundred,’ the superintendent continued. ‘Now, the only question is what the search’s focus should be. Where do you think we should be looking, Chief Inspector?’

  He didn’t really need an answer, Paniatowski thought – he knew as well as she did where to search – but he was drawing her into the process as a professional courtesy, and she appreciated that.

  ‘The old mills are a good starting point, sir,’ she suggested.

  And so they were. The mills had thrived when cotton was king in Lancashire, but had been abandoned for years. They were now so easy to gain access to that it was commonplace for bodies to be discovered in one or another of them, and though most of the dead eventually turned out to be tramps who had died of natural causes, Paniatowski herself had been involved in three investigations in which mills had either been the actual location of murders or the places where the victims were dumped.