If It Bleeds

by Bernie Crosthwaite

  “I love this theme, don’t you?” Patricia murmured.

  “Unforgettable,” I said. I knew it would be twanging round my brain for days.

  “What happened when she was sixteen?” Matt asked.

  “She refused to stay at the Sacred Heart and insisted on going to Ravenbridge High to do her A-levels. That didn’t last long — she dropped out. But the damage was done.”

  “Damage?”

  “Mixing with the wrong types.”

  “Isn’t that part of growing up?” I asked, remembering my own teenage years.

  “Everything we’ve ever taught her about behaviour and morals — it all went out of the window.”

  Matt tapped his pen on his knee. “You mean she slept around?”

  Mrs Ramsey snapped the lid of the music box shut, opened it and played the tune again. I gave Matt another glare and he looked suitably chastened, shrugging his shoulders to convey this was like slaving in the Siberian salt mines. I nodded briefly in agreement. We waited while the whiny melody tinkled to an end.

  “There are so many dangers in the world. She didn’t realise her power. A beautiful girl like her… And then she started that modelling business. She didn’t tell me. I only found out through someone in the congregation. Taking her clothes off for anyone to ogle her at those art classes — she was a temptation to sinners!” She fingered her crucifix. “I asked Father Thomas to talk to her, but it didn’t do any good. She told him there was nothing sinful about the naked human body.” She closed her eyes. “She was so naïve and trusting, that’s what killed her.” There was a long pause. We waited patiently until she came back to us. Eventually her eyelids fluttered open. “Do you work for the paper as well?” she asked Matt. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “No. I’m here as Jude’s friend.”

  “You can put what I said in the paper if you like.”

  “Yeah?” He was already pulling out his reporter’s notebook. “This will be an exclusive, yes?”

  “I don’t want to talk to any other journalists if that’s what you mean.”

  “Great.” Matt couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. “Look, I know this sounds crass, but I have to ask you about your reaction to Lara’s death.”

  “Devastated. That’s the kind of word you like, isn’t it?

  Matt dutifully wrote it down, along with a stream of religious dogma about sinners and tempters, predators and victims, our sick and debauched society.

  “Lara stopped attending Mass at St Bridget’s when she was fifteen. Then she changed schools. She didn’t want to go to the convent any more. She was adamant. In the end, we decided she could go to Ravenbridge High School as long as she worked hard and applied to university, but no, she dropped out of the sixth form and messed around for a while before she got a job with an estate agent. It was only supposed to be temporary.”

  “She worked there for… three years? It must have been pretty boring. How come she stayed so long?”

  “The money, I suppose. She was determined to leave home and live independently. As soon as she’d saved enough, that’s exactly what she did. She went to live alone in a slum. And look what happened to her!”

  “It could have happened to anyone,” I said quietly.

  “No. She was special. Someone picked her out. I’m sure of it.”

  Matt closed his notebook. “All I need now is a family photo, Lara with you and your husband. A holiday snap, perhaps?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have any family pictures?” I asked.

  “Yes, I have. But I don’t want to part with any of them. I gave the police a recent photo, and that’s all I’m prepared to hand over.”

  “It would help the story enormously,” said Matt.

  “Lara was an only child.” She stroked the lid of the music box. “Souvenirs and pictures, they’re all I’ve got left.”

  Somewhere in the house a phone began to ring. Mrs Ramsey didn’t move.

  “It could be your husband,” said Matt. “Or the police.”

  She rose slowly out of her seat and left the room. As soon as the door closed Matt began rapidly searching the dresser, the mantelpiece, the windowsill, every surface where ornaments and photographs were neatly lined up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Yes!” he cried triumphantly. He held out a silver photo frame.

  “Put it back! In all the years I’ve been a newspaper photographer I’ve never stooped so low as to steal a picture and I’m not going to start now.”

  Sighing deeply, Matt put the frame back on the shelf.

  A few seconds later Patricia Ramsey returned. “Double glazing,” she said.

  *

  We were walking down the path when Matt’s mobile rang.

  “Yeah?” He began to walk faster. “Right. Thanks. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “What is it?”

  “Tony. The police have been going through Lara’s flat and they’ve found something.”

  “What?”

  “Blood.”

  *

  “So I was right. Lara was obviously killed at her flat and moved much later.”

  “Miss Marple, eat your heart out. This is a good one.” Matt pointed at the screen. He had persuaded me to come back to work to scan and file the pictures he’d taken at Jubilee Park. “I’m not trusting anybody else with them,” he’d said.

  I examined a picture of a black body bag being wheeled away on a trolley. I tried to separate my professional expertise from the feeling of horror that crept over me.

  “Depends what you mean by good,” I muttered. He looked crestfallen. “The focus and composition are fine, I don’t mean that. For God’s sake, Matt, it’s a real human being in that bag. It’s Lara. The girl Daniel loved.”

  “Sorry, Jude. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You journalists never do. I know, don’t tell me — you just report the facts. I’ve heard it all before.”

  I moved on to the next one, a mug shot of Detective Inspector Laverack. I reduced the red tones and erased a tree branch that seemed to be sticking out of his ear.

  “You’re good at this.” Matt got off the workbench and looked round at the pictures on the walls. He peered at the three new ones. “I haven’t seen these before. Are they yours?”

  I glanced up. “Yeah. Harrison must have done some enlargements and put them up.”

  “They’re a bit different.”

  “I’m not just a gun for hire. I can do arty pix too.”

  “I can see that. I like this one.” He pointed to the ‘river for sale’ picture.

  “It made me smile at the time. Though I’m surprised Harrison bothered with it. He thought it was bollocks.” I tapped the screen. “You’ve got your finger over the lens here.”

  “Sorry, Jude. We can’t all be brilliant.”

  “Is Tony going to run the interview with Lara’s mum?”

  “As long as I tone it down a bit, emphasise the ‘mother’s emotional plea to other vulnerable young girls’ angle, and drop the religious stuff, he should be OK about it. Especially when we show him this…” He reached into the deep pockets of his torn wool coat and pulled out a silver frame.

  “Please don’t tell me you stole that?”

  “Borrowed. If you get it processed straight away I’ll take it back to the house this afternoon. She won’t even miss it, I promise.”

  “I was just thinking what a nice guy you were.”

  “I am, Jude, I am. But I’m a journalist. Without a good picture it’s only half a story. You should know that. You will do it for me, won’t you?”

  “No way.”

  *

  After I’d scanned and filed the picture, I leaned back in my chair and scrutinised it. It showed Lara and her parents sitting on some hot Mediterranean terrace. At first glance there was nothing unusual about it, but looking closely I could see that the three of them sat stiffly in their plastic chairs, their drinks barely touched. Lara,
looking about seventeen, had a guarded sullen expression, while her parents wore forced smiles. I guessed some waiter or fellow tourist had offered to take a snap of the apparently happy family. But the resulting image told a different story.

  I put the original in a reinforced brown envelope and placed it on Matt’s desk. He stopped his feverish tapping for a moment.

  “Remember this, Matt Dryden, when I’m out of a job and you’re editor of the Sun. You owe me.”

  He touched my hand lightly, sending a current of warmth right through my body. “Don’t worry, Jude. I won’t forget.”

  Six

  Tony sent Harrison to cover the police activity on Stonebeck Avenue, the street where Lara lived, taking me off the job as a kind of punishment for turning up so late.

  I tried to work but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept going over what I knew, attempting to make something out of very little. Considering the amount of blood, I assumed Lara had been attacked with a knife or sharp implement and this had happened in her own flat. That meant she probably knew her murderer, although it didn’t rule out the possibility of an opportunistic attack by a stranger. But stranger or friend, why move her body hours later to such a public place? What time did the park gates open? Had anybody seen anything? It had been a bitterly cold morning after a boozy New Year. The killer might just have got away without being spotted by anybody, damn it.

  In the end I couldn’t stand it any longer. I knew Matt was busy, so I went on my own.

  *

  Stonebeck Avenue was a row of squat terraced houses with tiny front gardens. Most of the properties were well kept up, with new window frames and tubs filled with winter pansies.

  Number 15 was an exception. All the brickwork had been painted purple, the windows were thick with grime, and the so-called garden doubled as a rubbish tip. It seemed odd that someone who worked in the property business would choose to live here. It was certainly a massive contrast to Patricia Ramsey’s house. Perhaps that was the point.

  How well did Daniel really know this girl? He had certainly never been inside her flat. He had walked Lara back here just once, at New Year, and he wasn’t invited in that night. It was her own private space, she’d told him. But one day soon… That day would never come for Daniel now.

  Lara’s Theme suddenly started buzzing in my head, wrecking my train of thought.

  I glanced at the cars parked along the narrow street but I couldn’t spot Lara’s white Polo. I wondered where it was. Perhaps the police had taken it away. As if I’d summoned them up, a police van arrived and a pair of SOCO officers in white overalls climbed out and ducked under the blue and white tape that spanned the front gate. Just outside the door they pulled on elasticated overshoes, then disappeared into the gloomy hallway.

  There was no sign of Harrison.

  A few bunches of flowers had been laid on the pavement, glistening in their cellophane wrapping, the hothouse blooms already wilted and frost-bitten. I was reading the messages when I heard a noise behind me. A boy was trundling a bright yellow bag on wheels towards me. He was delivering the second edition of the Evening Post, the one that came out around 1pm. The first edition came out around half past eleven, and usually not much changed for the final one. But in a case like this, things could develop rapidly from hour to hour. I hadn’t seen either edition yet but no doubt, like yesterday, the news of Lara’s death filled the front page, probably leading with the interview with her mother, complete with family picture.

  The boy trailed up each short path on his round and shoved a paper in the letterbox, leaving it sticking out, or sometimes just dumping it on the doorstep. He took no notice of me as he went by, too busy kicking flowers out of the way. Leaving his trolley, he ducked under the tape and dropped a paper on the front step. He was small, but from his hard knowing face I reckoned he was about fourteen.

  I looked at my watch. 2.17pm.

  “Shouldn’t you be at school?” I asked. “You know, first day back?”

  “School sucks.”

  “Do you know what happened to the girl who lived here?”

  “Course I do.” He waved a newspaper at me. “I can read.”

  “Then why deliver the paper?”

  “There’s a flat upstairs as well.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. He was reaching into his bag for the next copy.

  “Did you know the girl who died?”

  “Sort of. I’ve seen her around. Nice tits.” He squinted at me to see if I was shocked. I kept my face impassive. “She was the only girl I know who wasn’t scared of spiders.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “None of your business.” He scurried away but I dogged his footsteps as he delivered the Post along the street, tackling him each time he emerged from a gateway.

  “If you knew she wasn’t scared of spiders you must have known her quite well.”

  “I told you, I just saw her sometimes when I was doing my round.”

  “In the afternoons? Wasn’t she at work?”

  “I’m not usually this early.”

  “Do you bunk off school much?”

  “Sod off.” He pushed past, his trolley squeaking behind him.

  The street was a cul-de-sac ending in a high stone wall, the back of a discount carpet warehouse, a decrepit old building that had once been a paper factory. The boy crossed to the other pavement.

  “Where did Lara keep her car?”

  “There’s a yard round the back.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  He turned and faced me like a fox at bay. He glanced back at the police van. “Are you one of them?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s your problem? Get off my back, will you?”

  “My son was Lara’s boyfriend. He’s devastated.”

  “Shit happens, OK? He’ll get over it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  He was walking quickly away, giving up on delivering papers. I had to run to catch up with him, then matched him stride for stride.

  “Did you see her on Monday? New Year’s Day?”

  “There was no paper on Monday.”

  “No, of course not.” I bit my lip. “Have you noticed anything odd? Anyone hanging around here? Acting strangely?”

  He snorted.

  “What? Who did you see?”

  “Don’t you ever give up?”

  “No, I don’t. So you might as well tell me.”

  “I’ve got nothing to tell,” he said shiftily. We were nearly at the end of the road now.

  “I think you have. Who was it? Do you know the name?”

  He stopped and began kicking his trolley with the toe of his grubby trainer. “I’ve seen blokes hanging around.”

  “Did you recognise any of them?”

  He snorted again. “You could say that.”

  “Who was it?”

  “That teacher.”

  “What teacher?”

  “That dickhead, Mr Keele.” The kicking became frenzied. “I hate him. He banned me from art last term. I hate school. Teachers are wankers. At least I get paid for doing this.”

  He turned away abruptly.

  “Wait.” I was frantically trying to think. Of course Adam Keele knew Lara. He was the one who set up the life-drawing classes and hired the models. But why would he be hanging round her flat?

  “When did you see Mr Keele?”

  “Dunno. Mostly he was just sitting on the wall waiting for her. I reckon he fancied her. Maybe he killed her.” The boy grinned. “I’d like to see him get into trouble for a change. Yeah, I’d like that a lot.”

  At the end of the street he dumped his remaining papers in the bin. He picked up the empty trolley and bolted round the corner. I was too shocked by what he had said to follow him. And much too slow.

  Someone stepped in my path.

  “Harrison? Where’ve you been?”

  “It was bloody cold so I
went to get a coffee. What were you doing talking to Lee Maddox?”

  “He’s a little bugger, isn’t he?”

  “If you think he’s hard you should see his older brother Scott. He was in the same year at school as me and Lara.”

  “You knew Lara?”

  “Everybody knew Lara. She kind of stood out.”

  “Listen, I’ll talk to you later. There’s something I need to do.”

  “I thought Tony had sent you to take over from me.”

  “No way. It’s all yours, kiddo.”

  *

  The art rooms at Ravenbridge High were open-plan, with a long straight corridor linking the separate teaching areas. I’d been here often enough for parents’ evenings and exhibitions and breathed in the familiar smell of freshly mixed paint and wet clay. I stopped outside Adam Keele’s room. It was oddly quiet. Peering in I saw that there was no class going on here.

  Adam had his back to me, washing his hands in a deep china sink. He’d taken an interest in Daniel’s work right from Year 7, encouraged him and nurtured his talent. He was an inspiring and gifted teacher, with a wife and two young children. I’d always thought of him as one of the good guys.

  “Adam?”

  He twisted round, a haunted look on his face. His unkempt hair and glittering eyes suggested he hadn’t had much sleep.

  “Jude.” He looked relieved. He wiped his hands on his stained black shirt. “How’s Daniel? I heard he was poorly.”

  “He’s all right. It’s Lara I want to talk about.”

  He slumped back against the sink. “I can’t believe it. She was such a lovely girl. Who’d do a thing like that?”

  “Adam, there isn’t much time — your next class will be here in a minute.” I sat down on a stool. “The fact is you’ve been seen hanging around outside Lara’s house.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “A boy called Lee Maddox.”

  “Him? You can’t believe anything he says. He’s constantly in trouble. I wouldn’t say this about kids normally, but he’s a complete no-hoper.”

  “Actually, I did believe him.”

  He didn’t say anything, just stared at the floor.

  “You were seeing her, weren’t you?”