by Anita Waller
‘It is. As you know, her body has been found, fairly near Peaks Cavern, which is definitely not on the route to Hope from her house, it’s in the opposite direction. However, things have come to our attention that means we have to dig much deeper. It wasn’t accidental death; Orla died by strangulation.’
Emily went visibly paler. ‘But…’
‘But what, Emily? Is there something you know?’
‘No. I was going to say but she was simply coming to stay the night at mine. What’s gone so wrong that she’s dead?’ She brushed away a tear. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. She’s my best friend.’
‘And as your best friend, did she tell you which lad she was seeing?’
‘She didn’t need to tell me. She’d been out for a few coffees with my brother. They were starting to get a little serious, but nothing too heavy. She was coming that night to spend some time with Paul and me. We were going to watch a film, have a beer, and then she was going to stay the night with me. Not with Paul.’
Emily sounded angry, as if daring Marsden to suggest there was anything untoward about the relationship between Paul and Orla.
‘They hadn’t slept together?’
‘Definitely not. They’d only seen each other about three times, and the first was accidental. They bumped into each other in Bakewell, and Paul bought her a coffee. They got on really well, and Paul asked if I knew how Orla would feel if he asked her out. I said find out for yourself, and the result of that was a couple more coffees. It was in the early stages, I can assure you. Even Mum didn’t know about it. Orla has spent a lot of time at our house, and it wouldn’t occur to Mum that the reason was changing.’
Marsden lowered her eyes. ‘And there was definitely no one else in Orla’s life?’
For a moment, Emily looked troubled. ‘N…no.’
‘You sound unsure.’
‘That’s because Orla changed. She was always the confident one, the one who never let things get to her. She was our youth organiser at church, would help anybody. But then she began to change. One day she burst into tears, blamed it on period pains making her feel a bit down, but I’d never heard her complain about them before. I couldn’t get anything else out of her, and she asked if she could stay at ours that night. This was way before she started meeting up with Paul.’
‘You think she was seeing someone?’
‘I don’t know, honestly. But one thing I can tell you is that Paul and I, and Mum, were at home that awful horrible wet evening when Orla went missing. Paul was upset, he’d been looking forward to it, because he wanted to kind of formalise things by asking her if she would be his girlfriend.’
‘And you didn’t ring Marnie to find out where Orla was, when she didn’t turn up?’
‘No, because I’d done that once before and Orla had a go at me. She said they kept her on such a tight leash, she didn’t want them knowing anything. I did ring Orla’s phone, but it was dead. No voicemail, nothing. When Marnie texted me the day after, I knew I had to come clean and say she hadn’t been to our house, because I’d sat here at work worrying throughout the morning what had happened to her and why she wasn’t responding to her phone.’
Marsden nodded. ‘So you didn’t know she was pregnant?’
This time the shock was obvious. There was utter silence from the young girl.
‘Emily?’
‘Pregnant? But… who?’
‘We don’t know yet. She was about fourteen weeks. Would that be before she started seeing Paul?’
‘I’m sure of it. The first time he met her in Bakewell was about five, maybe six weeks ago.’
‘Then Paul has nothing to worry about. We will need a DNA sample from him, but it will be for elimination purposes. You’re sure you can’t think of anyone else she might have had sex with? Either intentional or forced?’
‘Forced?’ Emily’s eyes were open wide, as if she tried to assimilate everything Marsden was saying. ‘You mean rape?’
‘Or someone off limits, maybe a married man, who she had sex with because she wanted to.’
‘But this is Orla we’re talking about.’ Emily sounded anguished. ‘She was a Christian, she wouldn’t do that. Oh, God,’ she said and dropped her head onto her arms on the desk, ‘help me.’
Paul Carr was at work at a tyre depot not far from the solicitor’s office Tessa had recently left. He was cooperative, polite, and slightly angry that Marsden had interviewed his sister, causing her to become upset.
He confirmed everything Emily had said, and agreed to visit a local police station the next day to give a DNA sample.
Tessa didn’t see him thump the wall and wipe away tears. She was already driving away to the next part of the investigation.
7
Doris was reading through her coursework when the shop bell pinged. She looked up to see a man of medium height, with white hair and a thick jacket which proclaimed The North Face on the front of it. It was blue, and matched his eyes exactly.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Ewan Barker. I have an appointment…’
‘Welcome, Mr Barker. My name is Doris Lester. I spoke to you on the telephone.’
‘Doris, I’m delighted to meet you. And please call me Ewan.’
Doris smiled. ‘And it’s good to meet you, Ewan. I’ve booked you in with Katerina, although she prefers to be called Kat. Would you like a coffee?’
‘Thank you, I would. It’s freezing out there.’
‘Then let me take you through to Kat’s office, and I’ll get you one from her machine.’ She moved towards Kat’s office door, and Ewan followed her. She knocked and waited until she heard Kat call to come in, then opened the door. Kat stood with a smile.
‘Please come in, Mr Barker. Coffee?’
‘I’ll get it, Kat,’ Doris said, and moved to the side table. She quickly poured it, and handed it to the client who had removed his coat.
‘It may be freezing out there,’ he said, ‘but it’s certainly too toasty for this jacket in here.’
‘Enjoy,’ Doris said, and left him to Kat’s ministrations.
‘Okay, Mr Barker, I need to take some details before we get to the nitty-gritty of everything else.’ She pushed a form across the desk to him, along with a pen, and asked him to complete it.
Two minutes later, he gave it back to her with a smile. ‘All done,’ he said. ‘And it’s Ewan, please.’
‘Thank you, Ewan.’ She opened her top drawer. ‘Do you mind if we record our conversation? It’s so much easier than taking notes, and it ensures I don’t miss anything.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Thank you.’ She switched on the tiny machine and placed it between them. ‘So, start at the beginning, and tell me how we can help. We will require a retainer before we start any work, as you saw on the form, but we don’t stretch anything out, we get on with it and complete as quickly as possible.’
‘I know,’ he said, turning his blue eyes towards her. ‘You come highly recommended.’
He took a moment to think before he started speaking. ‘My son, or so I was told many years ago, is called Michael, and it was mooted during the pregnancy that if it was a boy, he would be Michael Ewan. His mother was Helen Fairfax. Helen was reluctant to discuss getting married, and was pretty upset that it looked as though she would be forced into that situation because of the pregnancy, but I always reassured her we could have the baby, and then decide our futures. She eventually came to accept that. The baby was due November 1968, and in September she left. She was seven months pregnant and simply disappeared. We lived on the outskirts of Sheffield at the time, and she had lots of friends. She worked in one of the department stores, Atkinsons, and there was quite a crowd of them who socialised. When I thought about it later, after she’d gone, I realised it wasn’t the marriage she didn’t want, I think it was the baby. It stopped what she saw as her life.’
He hesitated, gathering his thoughts.
‘How did you find out she’d had him?’
‘I bumped into one of her friends in a pub one night, and she said she wouldn’t tell me where Helen was, but she’d seen the baby and his name was Michael. Carla, the friend, gave me her own name, address and phone number, and I rang her fairly regularly over about a year, but I sensed she was getting a bit fed up with me ringing, so I stopped. I’ve never seen Michael, but I know Carla had a photo of him because she’d held the baby when she went to see Helen. She said he looked like me. Recently I had a triple heart bypass. It focusses your mind when something like that happens, and I really would like to see him. I did marry eventually, but Jean and I never had children. She died five years ago, so I thought it was time I sorted out my life. I’m hoping you can help me, Kat, because I don’t have any sort of idea where to start.’
‘Then let’s start with what we do know. Do you by any chance still have the name of the friend you used to ring?’
He took out his wallet. ‘I do,’ he said and handed over a small piece of card that had clearly started life as a beer mat. ‘But I do need to make it clear it’s not Helen I’m looking for. It’s Michael. Helen is the same age as me, seventy, born in 1948 on the 10th October – we shared a birthday. We actually met on our eighteenth birthdays – we celebrated them in the same pub. We were pretty inseparable until the day she disappeared. She left me a note, which I screwed up and threw away, so I’m sorry I don’t have that to show you. It said something along the lines of she didn’t want commitment, and she would be in touch when the baby was born. That, of course, never happened.’ He delved further into his wallet. ‘This is the only photo I have of Helen. Please take care of it.’
‘I’ll photocopy it, and you can put it back where it belongs in your wallet. I can give no guarantees, Ewan, that we will find him. Sometimes, when people want to disappear, they do it effectively. She may have left the country, taking her son with her, and although we could probably track that, once someone is in a different country they simply vanish well under the radar.’
‘I understand, really I do. But I have to try. I’m not a rich man, Kat, but neither am I poor. Michael should inherit what is rightfully his, but it’s not even about that. I simply want to see him, find out what kind of a man he is. I see him in my head as not too tall – both parents are only average height, and with fair hair. Helen and I were both blonde.’
Kat smiled. ‘Ewan, I promise we’ll give this our best shot. We’ll use Twitter and Facebook to help, if that’s okay with you, but if you say no to social media, we’ll use other means. We won’t use your name, only Helen’s and Michael’s. How do you feel about that?’
‘Kat, I can’t come to you for help with finding Michael, and then put restrictions on it. Do whatever you need to do, I’m confident you’ll be working with my best interests at heart.’
‘We’ll keep you fully informed every step of the way, so if ever you want to call a halt to something, get back to us quickly. This is our business card with the three mobile numbers on it, so that you can reach us any time.’ She slid the small card across the table to him. ‘We will be starting work on this immediately, so please check your emails every day in case we have queries. For anything urgent, we will of course ring you. Will you be paying your retainer by card or cheque?’
‘By card. That okay?’
‘It’s absolutely fine. You’ll need to sort that out with Doris before you go. She keeps us in line with the finances.’ Kat stood. ‘Thank you for your trust in us, Ewan. I hope we can solve this for you, I really do.’ She held out her hand and he stood and shook it.
‘Thank you, Kat. I’ll go and see that lovely lady on reception. She has a beautiful smile.’
Kat laughed. ‘You should see her when she’s doing her karate training. The smile disappears then. But you’re right, she is lovely. And before you go I need to introduce you to Beth, my business partner and Doris’s granddaughter, because she will be working on this case as well, and if she has to ring you, you need to know who she is. Beth and Doris are our technology experts. I’m the thinker, so they say.’
She picked up her phone and spoke to Beth.
Seconds later, Beth and her red nose came through the adjoining door, and shook hands with their new client. ‘Pleased to meet you, Ewan, but don’t come any closer. I was considering going home to bed and staying there for a week until this has passed.’
‘Whisky and lemon,’ Ewan said. ‘Go on, get off home.’
‘Good Lord,’ Beth said. ‘He sounds like my nan.’
‘Beth, go home,’ Kat said. ‘You can’t possibly be working. I’ll bet anything you’re laid back in your chair with your eyes closed, feeling sorry for yourself.’
‘Haven’t done a thing since I arrived,’ she confessed. ‘I’ll be in bed if anybody needs me.’ She turned and went back into her own office.
Kat photocopied the small picture of Helen Fairfax, and handed the original back to Ewan. She took him through to reception, and left him with Doris to pay his retainer.
Doris keyed the relevant information into the machine, and handed it to Ewan to insert his card. With the transaction completed, he smiled at her.
‘I don’t suppose there’s another cup of coffee going, is there?’
‘Of course. And a biscuit,’ she responded with a laugh. She pulled out a chair tucked under her desk at the back of reception, and closed the laptop lid, before pushing the computer to the edge of the table.
‘Please, sit down, Ewan. I’ll get our drinks. Presumably Kat was able to offer you some hope?’
Ewan sat. ‘She offered me an opportunity, which I’ve never felt I had before. It’s the fact that somebody is trying to find my son, it’s a massive thing to me. Even if Helen, the boy’s mother, managed to spirit him away completely, at least I’ll know I tried.’
Doris nodded. She handed him the coffee, and opened up her biscuit box. ‘Help yourself,’ she said, and sat on the other chair. ‘You live in Grindleford, I understand.’
‘I do. Love it there. I used to live in Bradwell, but I found I needed a bigger garden. This was prior to my triple heart bypass,’ he said with a grin. ‘Now I need a smaller one.’
‘I live in Bradwell,’ Doris said.
‘I left in 2000, when my wife was still alive. She didn’t want to leave, she loved our house there, but did recognise its limitations. How long have you lived there? I don’t remember you.’
‘Two days,’ Doris said with another laugh. ‘I’ve bought a little cottage up near the Bowling Green Inn. One small front garden, but a much bigger back one.’
Mouse came out of her office and walked over to Doris’s desk. She bent down and kissed her nan on the top of her head. ‘I’m going to bed. This damn cold is settled in my head, and it needs to be on a pillow. Please don’t disturb me unless there’s a dead body or something exciting.’
Doris stood and hugged her granddaughter. ‘I’ll pop up and see you before I go home. I’ll not wake you if you’re asleep.’
Mouse walked out of the shop, and Ewan stood. ‘Does she need a lift? She looks dreadful.’
‘No, she’s fine. She lives above here. The white door at the side of this shop is her front door. She’ll be in bed in thirty seconds.’
‘Dead body? I assume she’s joking.’
Doris thought for a moment. ‘Not really. We’ve had one or two to deal with as part of past investigations. And Mouse… Beth… was almost one herself.’
‘Mouse? You call her Mouse?’ His smile was infectious.
‘We do. When she was born she was tiny, like a little mouse, and the name has stuck with her throughout her life. Kat has known her a couple of years, and she calls her Mouse too. It suits her.’
‘You’re close?’
‘Very. She lost her parents when she was sixteen and I stepped in. But we’re friends more than anything. I keep her on the straight and narrow, or try to anyway, and she says Oh Nan, repeatedly. It’s a good relationship. And we have Kat. She too calls me Nan, so this business partnership
is a lot more than simply that.’
‘How wonderful,’ Ewan said, and reached across for a second garibaldi. ‘I can’t resist these damn biscuits. It’s why I don’t buy them.’
They chatted for a further five minutes and then Ewan stood and put on his coat. ‘Thank you for this, Doris. It’s been lovely spending time with you. Could I take you out for a drink sometime? Maybe the Bowling Green?’
Doris felt her cheeks redden. ‘Oh… erm… yes. Yes, that would be lovely.’
‘Tomorrow night? I can either collect you, or we can meet in the pub.’
Doris felt flustered. ‘We can meet in the pub. It’s only two minutes away. Eight o’clock?’
‘That will be great. I’ll look forward to it. And if anything crops up to prevent it, we have each other’s contact details. I do understand you have an unusual occupation, so plans may have to change. Thank you for today, Doris. This has turned out so much better than I could possibly have imagined.’
8
Marsden was sitting at her desk in Chesterfield when her email pinged. She read through it and then leaned back with a sigh. So there was no connection between the foetus from Orla French’s womb and the accident victim Jacob Thorne.
She spun her chair round to look out of the window, and pushed her hair back. She knew something was wrong about the whole thing with Jacob Thorne; two missing persons, yet only one body had been found. Gut instinct told her that the mud-covered Jacob had been involved in the second one, but no further bodies had shown up in Castleton.
She was aware that her colleagues were already considering it to be two deaths by the same hand, but she wasn’t convinced. If she could place a bet on it, she would say that Orla French’s tragic death was linked to her pregnancy; the second missing person Tessa would say was linked to Jacob Thorne. She hoped that one was a missing person and not a death.
She stood abruptly, deciding it was time to head back out to Castleton. ‘Hannah,’ she called, and DS Granger popped her head around the open door of Marsden’s office.