by Anita Waller
30
By lunchtime, supplies had been restored to their former glory in the cupboards of Connection, with not a Garibaldi biscuit in sight.
Kat typed up the full report into Alyson Read and Ed Danvers, but didn’t file it away in the completed drawer; she wanted Carl to check through it first, ensuring she had all the facts for the part he had played.
She was aware of how quiet Doris had been, and knew the reason had to be Ewan Barker. Kat hoped she wasn’t scared, more angry that she had been taken in by him. She had started to leave her office door open when they had no clients in. She didn’t expect Ewan to have the balls to come back to their offices, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t. She figured he would be more protective of the said balls in the future.
She was mulling over the difficulty, and wondering how they could find the real Doris again, when she heard the ping of the shop doorbell, followed by Tessa Marsden’s voice.
‘We need to talk.’
‘Good Lord, are you here to arrest us?’ Doris didn’t sound too concerned.
‘Why. You done something wrong?’
‘Sort of. A little bit wrong. Maybe a tad.’
‘Doris Lester! Tell me more.’
Tessa had long suspected that Doris was the muscle behind the three Connection ladies, and wasn’t convinced by their denial that Leon Rowe’s absent hand was anything to do with them. ‘What have you done?’
‘Self-defence,’ she said. ‘Totally self-defence, and it’s all on film, so if you ever get a strange man in that police station of yours saying I beat him up, I can prove two things. The first one is I did, the second one is he went for me first. I stopped him. Effectively. But he can’t have been in to see you because I don’t think he’ll be walking yet,’ she finished with a smile.
‘Can we see the film?’ Hannah asked.
‘Not if you’re going to arrest me.’
‘If we promise not to arrest you, can we see it?’
‘Maybe. Later. It’s coffee time. Do you want to go through to Kat’s office?’
Kat tried to stifle her laughter at the conversation she had heard, and went to her office door to usher them in.
‘You done anything we can arrest you for?’ Tessa said, with an exaggerated wink at Kat.
‘As if,’ Kat responded. ‘I’m a church deacon.’
‘And Mouse? She done anything?’
Simultaneously it occurred to both Kat and Doris that even Tessa had taken to using the name Mouse for Beth.
‘She’s in Manchester, she could be doing anything in that den of iniquity.’
‘Then we can safely leave her to the Manchester lads. What happens in Lancashire, stays in Lancashire. We got chocolate biscuits?’
Doris handed around four coffees and placed a plate of biscuits on the table. ‘You’re here for a specific reason? Or is it a friends dropping by sort of visit?’
‘Friends dropping by for a biscuit,’ Tessa said. ‘And to talk.’
‘Orla French?’
‘Orla French. We’ve interviewed everybody at least once, some twice, some even three times, but I’m leaning towards the random stranger theory. Maybe it was simply a case of Orla being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do I think she would be so naïve as to accept a lift from a stranger in the pouring rain? Yes, I think I could see that situation with her. However, we’ve covered every house along that stretch of road between Castleton and Hope – and there aren’t many – checking CCTV cameras and not one has showed an image of a young girl walking in the rain. Either she never started to make that journey, or she was actually offered the lift in Castleton, but from her leaving work it seems she disappeared. Nobody saw her once she walked out of that café door.’
Engrossed in Tessa’s explanation, they all acted as if they were Hungry Hippos, reaching across the table with one hand towards the biscuit plate and taking one. Nobody spoke, waiting for Tessa to continue.
‘It has to be somebody she didn’t know, or at least somebody she knew but nobody in her circle knew she knew them. And I realise that’s far too many “knews”, but you get my drift. I’m thinking off the top of my head here, but if I’m right with that, where the hell do we start looking for a stranger? I don’t want to be dragging Orla’s name out in ten years’ time and working it as a cold case. So, let’s throw this around. Who wants to go first?’
The silence was solid until it was broken by the peal of the doorbell. Doris stood and moved towards the door, but Kat blocked her. ‘I’ll go,’ she said.
‘I’m on reception, Kat,’ and Doris went through.
Mouse was removing her coat.
‘Hello, sweetheart. Good day?’
Mouse looked at her nan. ‘You thought I was Ewan, didn’t you?’
‘If I did it wouldn’t have worried me,’ Doris said with a slight smile. ‘In there I have Kat, Tessa and Hannah. He’d have run a mile. You joining us, or have you had enough?’
‘I’ll dump my stuff in my office, and join you. I’ll lock the main door though.’
Mouse watched, a thoughtful expression on her face as Doris re-entered Kat’s office. Her nan wasn’t right and it was showing.
Tessa quickly filled Mouse in on what she had already covered, and Mouse countered with, ‘You don’t think it’s a stranger murder at all, do you?’
‘Not really, no.’ Tessa sighed.
‘What stops you thinking that?’ Kat joined in.
‘First and foremost, I think the pregnancy is behind it all. We know she slept with Andy Harrison once, but we’ve only his word it was once, don’t forget. She slept with Steve Barksworth several times… could she have dabbled with someone else? Either willingly or unwillingly? Paul Carr says they definitely hadn’t got to that stage, they were simply at the cup of coffee point, no further, so that leads us to other church people, because she didn’t do much else in her life. She has connections with Hope and Bradwell churches, but her main worship place was Castleton.’
‘Okay,’ Kat said. ‘You’ve interviewed everybody in the usual congregation of Castleton church, and I know they’re like every other church congregation, getting on a bit. But do they have kids or grandkids who would be about Orla’s age? Could she have met one of them at some church function? We have lots of village-based activities here in Eyam, as you know, and I’m sure the others will as well. That could be worth looking at. Talk about it specifically to Steve, he might be able to point you in the right direction. But I’m sure you’re right, that baby is behind all of this.’
‘We do have another avenue to follow about the baby, funnily enough,’ Tessa said. ‘I don’t know much about it yet, because when I rang to make an appointment, the voicemail message said they are closed today. I’ll be going to see them tomorrow.’
‘Who?’ Mouse asked.
‘Oh sorry, my thoughts are all over the place. We called to pick up a sandwich from the tea shop where Orla worked, and the owner produced this from the side of the till.’ Tessa took out a letter from her bag and laid it on the table. She turned it over so they could see the name of the sender on the back.
‘M B clinic. Don’t they do baby scans?’
‘They do,’ Tessa confirmed. ‘What’s strange is that Orla didn’t use her home address, she gave the café address. This letter arrived two days ago. I don’t suppose for one minute I would ever have got it if we hadn’t chosen to call in.’
‘And what is it about?’
‘According to the letter, she gave them the wrong mobile phone number, and emails to her email address are bouncing back to them, so they’ve had to resort to a letter. It’s an appointment for a gender scan. It’s rather looking as though the first part of her pregnancy was being taken care of outside of the NHS, with Orla paying for her scans.’
‘Do you get the impression this young girl was running scared?’ Doris said quietly. ‘Nothing about this is normal. Nobody, not even her best friend, knew what was happening. I find it strange. I also think we’re going ar
ound in circles with it, and I feel we’re being less than helpful for you. I think you possibly will have to go back to the beginning. Recheck all the alibis, because if it isn’t a stranger who has killed her, it’s somebody within her circle of friends or family. And that means somebody is lying, or manipulating somebody else to lie for them. Did you ever find where she went into the water?’
‘No.’ Tessa shook her head in frustration. ‘The weather that night was awful, torrential rain that washed anything vaguely resembling a clue into oblivion. We had no tyre tracks in places where there should have been tyre tracks, nothing that would show us where she went in, no candidates for the person who threw her in… nothing. I might need another biscuit to calm my frazzled nerves.’
Doris pushed the plate towards her. ‘Help yourself. I think it’s been that kind of week for all of us. Although has it? Mouse, how did you get on?’
‘We got the contract. He was impressed. Took me for lunch, and I’m going over next week to go through my suggestions for what I think they need with the questionnaires. I said I’d spend this week putting together a comprehensive package. I talked the talk, and I think he was impressed. He’s called Joel Masters, and I’ll probably stay over in Manchester because he’s taking me for dinner.’
‘You’ll be careful?’
Mouse was surprised it was Tessa who asked the question, and not her nan. ‘I will. Last time I wasn’t careful I took a bullet. This time I’ll carry the gun.’ She grinned.
Tessa shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. Anyway, ladies, thank you for your input this afternoon. I’ll be at this scan place tomorrow morning, then at my desk for the rest of the day. I think you’re right when you say somebody is lying. I need to find out who it is. That’s the plan for the morning.’
Tessa and Hannah left, and Mouse sank back in her chair. ‘That was nice. I do like it when they call in, and I always feel as though they sharpen my mind. It’s bothering her that she seems to be going round in circles. When she’s solved this one, and I’m sure she will, we’ll all go out for a meal, yes?’
‘I’m always up for that,’ Kat said.
Doris remained silent.
‘Nan?’
‘I’ll let you young ones go, I think,’ she said, and walked out to the reception.
Doris knew her girls were worrying about her, concerned that she was too quiet, but she also recognised that she needed time out, to recover. Ewan hadn’t been good for her and she could never have accepted that it was right to hit a woman, but she had liked the Ewan she hadn’t really known.
She sat at her desk, and opened her laptop. Work. That’s what would do it. She could immerse herself in it, and never have to think about Ewan bloody Barker again.
Perhaps.
31
The plane landed at Manchester airport at half past seven, and by the time she had cleared customs and dragged her suitcase through the milling crowds of departures and arrivals she could have kissed the man she noticed holding a card sporting her name.
‘We’re not far away,’ he said, and led her across a small road to a waiting Peugeot.
Rush hour traffic delayed them so it was almost ten o’clock by the time they reached her hotel, a small one in Bakewell she had stayed in before. She checked in, then dealt with the woman from the car hire company, who was waiting to hand car keys over to her.
By eleven o’clock, she was unpacked and finishing off a welcome cup of coffee.
The greyness of the day didn’t bother her, she wasn’t here for a holiday in the sun. For the next week or so, she intended disposing of some of the stuff on her bucket list.
It was peaceful in the office. Doris had taken the day off to supervise having some work done at Little Mouse Cottage, and Kat had brought Martha with her, knowing it would be a quiet day and she could spend some time with her daughter while keeping a watching brief on reception.
Kat was reaching to unfasten the harness holding Martha in the pushchair when she heard the peal of the shop doorbell.
‘One moment, sweetheart,’ she said to the baby, and turned to see who the visitor was.
‘Is that my beautiful granddaughter?’ Sue Rowe said.
‘DI Marsden, and this is my colleague DS Granger.’ Tessa held out her ID towards the receptionist. ‘We’d like to speak with whoever is in charge, please.’
The place was impressive, white with deep purple armchairs in the seating area.
The receptionist smiled. ‘If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll get Mr Ingham to you as soon as possible. He’s scanning at the moment, but he shouldn’t be long. Would you like a coffee while you wait?’
‘No thank you, we’re fine,’ Tessa said, to Hannah’s dismay.
They sat side by side on the purple seats and waited.
And waited.
Half an hour passed, and then the door to the side of the reception opened, a man walked through and headed for them. He reached to shake their hands. ‘I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. The scan I was doing proved to be twins, which obviously takes longer. However, all was good and the parents are slightly shell-shocked. Please follow me, and we’ll go to my office.’
Once seated, and yet again refusing the offer of a drink, Tessa produced the letter that had been sent to Orla French.
‘You scanned this girl recently, then wrote to her at her place of work.’
He glanced through the contents of the letter, then nodded. ‘Yes, but this was the address she gave us. I assumed she lived at this place. And for the record, we don’t scan girls, or women, we scan pregnancies. Everything was fine, we were able to give her what she wanted, and I said I would contact her with a date for her gender scan. Is there a problem? I can’t go into any details of course; her pregnancy is her own business.’
‘The day after you scanned her, Orla French died. So we’d like to see her file, please. It is a murder investigation, and we can get a warrant…’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ He spoke into his intercom and a couple of minutes later the file was on his desk. He opened it and glanced inside. ‘Now I remember. She was quite specific in what she wanted from this scan. She wanted the date of conception of the baby, almost to the minute it seemed to me. I assumed there was some query over the paternity, but she didn’t say that, it was purely my speculation.’
He passed the file to Tessa and it was clear from the date they had given Orla that she must have known immediately that Andy Harrison was the father. Tessa could only begin to understand how Orla must have felt. She had been naïve enough to get the question of her virginity out of the way, but had she been so naïve that she didn’t know that the first time of having sex could result in a baby?
‘Can you remember how she reacted when you gave her this date?’
‘She didn’t react. She seemed a quiet person, she thanked me, asked about gender scanning, and I said I would contact her with a date for that. However, when we tried text and email, then finally the phone, it was clear we had been given incorrect information. That letter was a last resort really.’
‘And you didn’t connect the girl murdered at Castleton with this client?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. We get a lot of people giving us false names anyway, so they don’t actually stick in my mind. I know who you’re talking about now, but half an hour ago I didn’t. I’m sorry.’
Tessa gave a slight nod. ‘We’re going to take the file with us, but DS Granger will give you a receipt for it. It will be returned to you after the trial.’
He looked startled. ‘I’ll be needed?’
‘Oh yes, every day we get a little closer to knowing who strangled Orla then threw her into the Peakshole Water. It’s probable you will be called to give evidence.’
Hannah wrote out the receipt, and took hold of the file.
Keith Ingham said nothing further.
Tessa and Hannah sat in the car without moving.
‘Bless her,’ Hannah said.
&nb
sp; ‘I know exactly what you mean. I wonder what Orla would have done, had this awful thing not happened to her. And what Andy and Marnie would have done. Andy would have been the baby’s father and grandfather at the same time. They came very close to splitting up recently, and Andy was devastated by that. I don’t reckon that marriage would have survived if the baby had been born.’
‘Do you think Orla had actually gone off the rampant vicar by the time she died?’ Hannah spoke slowly, thinking her thoughts out loud.
‘He didn’t say she had.’
‘I’m thinking she was starting to get interested in Paul Carr, a lad more her age. She did take her faith pretty seriously, and it makes me wonder if she was starting to see how wrong it was, sleeping with Andy, then with Steve Barksworth. Maybe she was starting to mature, and realising Paul would be good for her.’
‘We’ll never know, will we. It’s a frustrating case, and I feel as if we’re going round in circles. We have a really clear picture of her, her life, her activities, her sex life, her home life – all her bloody life, and yet nobody is an obvious suspect. She was as close as anything to her mum and stepdad, even went on honeymoon with them, so there’s no conflict in the home. She had a nice little job that she enjoyed – no problem there either. Her church life was complicated but only because of the vicar and he was with a bloody bishop on the night Orla died.
‘And it seems there was nothing else about Orla. A village girl, didn’t go out clubbing, one close friend but other friends on the periphery… this should be easy, shouldn’t it? When we get back,’ Tessa was the one now speaking slowly, working through her thoughts, ‘we will both sit down independently and make lists of everybody who has a connection to Orla French. This won’t be a quick job, because then we’re going to reinterview every damn one of them who confirmed alibis, double-check everything, nit-pick until we get down to the lowest levels. You can take the bishop.’