Vanish Without Trace (2019 Reissue)

by Bill Kitson

  The regulars had been enjoying Joe’s verbal sparring with authority. This was more fun than Match of the Day. At Nash’s last sentence, however, they stirred uneasily.

  ‘You wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Don’t try me.’

  Nash and the landlord stood eye to eye, optical arm wrestling. ‘Okay, okay; follow me.’

  Nash turned to Mironova. ‘Stay here. Make sure none of these characters does a runner. Get on the radio, tell Tom what’s happened. We need Pearce and SOCO here, PDQ.’

  The yard was piled high with beer kegs and crates of empty bottles. A second officer was standing by the back gate. The woman was lying in the middle of the concrete. The cause of death was easy enough to establish. The long-handled knife sticking out of her chest gave it away.

  The paramedics had checked for signs of life, shook their heads sorrowfully and departed. ‘Who is she, Rawlings?’

  ‘Name’s Lizzie Barton; off the Westlea estate.’ Rawlings, it appeared, had decided to cooperate.

  ‘Known to us, do you reckon?’

  For the first time, Nash saw a glint of genuine humour in Rawlings’s eyes. ‘Isn’t everyone from that estate?’

  ‘It isn’t compulsory, but most of them are.’

  ‘Listen, Inspector—?’

  ‘My name’s Nash.’

  ‘Oh yes. I heard about you on the radio yesterday, about the missing girl. Have you found her yet?’

  ‘No, we haven’t. Anyway, about this one, Lizzie Barton, you said her name is. Was she married?’

  This time there was no doubt the laughter was genuine. ‘Not formally, at least not that I know of. She’s half a dozen kids, all by different blokes. They used to tease her in there,’ he jerked his thumb in the direction of the pub. ‘Said she was after her own football team and every player would have a different name on his shirt. She won’t make it now.’ Rawlings’s humour turned mordant. ‘Ah well, there’s always six-a-side.’

  Nash turned to look at the dead woman. Lizzie Barton looked probably just the wrong side of forty, or maybe that was a result of her lifestyle. She was attractive enough in a bold, slightly second-hand way. It looked as if she’d been around a bit and the journey hadn’t been an easy one. She was dressed in jeans, sweat shirt and trainers, almost a uniform for those frequenting the pub. Her handbag lay alongside the body. It had tipped over on its side and her purse had spilled out. Even without touching it, Nash could see the purse contained a quantity of notes. That in itself was a minor miracle. ‘Who found the body?’

  ‘The barman. He had to change a keg and there’s not much room in the cellar, so we bring the empties straight out here.’

  Looking closer, Nash noticed the ankle bracelet. He could never remember the significance of which ankle the bracelet was worn on. ‘Was she a pro?’

  ‘On the game? If she got short of money, I reckon she wouldn’t have minded charging for it. She never touted it in the pub, though.’

  ‘Naturally, because you’d have to tell her it was against the licensing laws and you’d have to ban her, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I would, Inspector,’ Rawlings replied solemnly, acknowledging Nash’s sarcasm.

  ‘Did you ever—?’ Nash let the question hang in the air.

  Rawlings smiled. ‘If I admit that, am I a suspect?’

  ‘You’ve just as good as admitted it. You’re already a suspect, but by the sound of it you’ll not be short of company.’

  Rawlings said resignedly, ‘We did slip upstairs to my flat some afternoons. Lizzie was good in bed and enjoyed it too. A genuine enthusiast.’

  ‘Presumably only when there was no racing on telly?’

  There was a touch of pride in Rawlings’s voice when he replied. ‘Exactly; business before pleasure. I let everyone in the pub think I lose a lot, but in fact I make more money from gambling than I do from running this place. Last year I cleared £70,000 after tax.’

  ‘So you’d be in a position to pay Lizzie, if she charged for it?’

  ‘Lizzie, and a few more besides. I may not be good looking but that doesn’t stop me wanting it, Mr Nash, and if there are women prepared to go to bed with me, why not?’ He shrugged. ‘And if they need money, again, why not? We’ve all got to make our way in this life the best we can.’

  ‘Was Lizzie in the pub at lunchtime?’

  ‘If she was, I didn’t see her, and I didn’t go upstairs until about two o’clock. The first race was at 2.15 and I’d a fair amount riding on it.’

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘I backed the favourite. It won in a canter at 6/4. I cleared three thousand pounds.’

  ‘So Lizzie might have been on her way here and got waylaid?’

  ‘Could be,’ the landlord looked down at the dead woman. ‘Lizzie didn’t deserve this, I reckon.’

  ‘Was the pub busy at lunchtime?’

  ‘On a Tuesday, you must be joking. Just those you saw and half a dozen more. It’s hardly worth opening.’

  ‘Then you’ll have no trouble remembering the names of the others then, the ones who scarpered before we arrived.’

  Rawlings shifted uneasily. ‘My regulars wouldn’t be happy me giving their names to the … police.’

  ‘Perhaps they’d be happier having a couple of my officers sitting at the bar every night for a week or two, until I’m sure we’ve interviewed everyone?’ Nash suggested mildly.

  Rawlings looked horrified. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’ He raised his hands in mock surrender.

  ‘Did Lizzie have any enemies you knew of?’

  ‘If she did, she never told me. She was popular in the pub. Mind you, she’d been through most of the blokes at one time or another, but it wasn’t serious with Lizzie, just recreational. I don’t think any of them bore her a grudge or would harm her.’

  ‘What about their wives or girlfriends? Had she made anyone in particular jealous enough to want to hurt her?’

  Rawlings hesitated. ‘I couldn’t say for sure.’

  He was lying, Nash was sure of it. What was more, Rawlings knew he was aware of the fact. Nash detailed the officer to remain with the body and led Rawlings back inside. There, he found Pearce had joined Mironova and the two of them were taking details from the customers. ‘I’ll need you to come into the station and make a formal statement, but that can wait. You can go back to your racing if you want.’

  Rawlings glanced at his watch. ‘It’s okay; the last televised race is over.’

  ‘We’re going to have to close the pub until the forensics people have finished,’ Nash warned him.

  Rawlings nodded resignedly. ‘I expected that. Thank God it isn’t Friday or Saturday.’

  ‘You should be able to re-open tomorrow lunchtime. One thing I would advise, though. Get on the phone to a signwriter. Have that sign over the door repainted. If I noticed it, others will.’

  Nash walked over to talk to the superintendent, who’d just entered. He briefed Pratt and took him into the yard to view the body. ‘We need to clear this up ASAP,’ Pratt said. ‘We’re stretched enough as it is.’

  ‘Tell me about it. One thing does puzzle me, given the reputation this place has. Why have we never objected to the licence?’

  ‘Because sometimes it’s an advantage knowing exactly where to find certain people.’

  ‘You mean, keep all the villains in one place?’

  ‘Makes life simpler for us.’

  ‘I’ll finish up here as fast as I can. The landlord’s giving us the names of everyone who was in here at lunchtime. I’ll send Mironova and Pearce off to talk to them. There won’t be that many.’ A thought occurred to Nash and he waved the landlord across.

  ‘Would the back gate have been unlocked?’

  Rawlings nodded. ‘Some of the regulars use it as a short cut. Besides which, we have deliveries twice a week, so I leave it open.’

  ‘So, whoever stabbed Lizzie needn’t have come into the pub at all?’

  ‘Not if they knew the gate
was open.’

  Nash waited until the landlord was out of earshot. ‘I’m going to have a word with the barman. I’ve a notion he might have something to contribute, and I think I know how to make him spill it.’

  At first it seemed Nash’s confidence was unjustified. In face of the barman’s sullen defiance Nash merely smiled and said, ‘I hope you’re going to tell us all you know without me making it difficult for you?’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘You found the body, for one thing. You know more than anyone else. Tell me about it.’

  The barman shrugged. ‘I’d to change a barrel. I took the empty keg out and there she was.’

  ‘That’s a load of rubbish. I’ll tell you why, shall I? The reason is, I already know what you’re not telling me.’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. It wasn’t only an empty keg you took outside, was it?’

  The young barman’s face lost what little colour it had, but he managed to reply. ‘Course it was.’

  ‘I see, and did you dial 999 as soon as you came back inside?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘You didn’t by any chance make another quick phone call first, from your mobile?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Maybe to tell your pal not to come for the crate of lager? The one you’d put out for him? Nice little scam that. A busy pub like this, who’s going to miss the odd crate now and again? You pile the empties high then put a full one on top of the stack. Rawlings can’t see it because he’s only a short-arse, and besides, it’s not out there long. Your pal drives up, collects the crate, sells it on and you split the difference. It must have shocked the living daylights out of you, finding the body. With us about to crawl all over the spot, it would only have been a matter of time before somebody found the crate and put two and two together,’ Nash’s smile was wolf-like as he concluded, ‘and now, your worst fears have come true.’

  ‘You can’t prove it.’

  Nash laughed. ‘I don’t have to. All I have to do is whisper the magic words in Rawlings’s ear and you’ll be out on yours. So you’d better talk and talk fast.’

  ‘I told you. I’ve nothing to say.’

  ‘Fine, I don’t care one way or the other.’ Nash signalled to Pearce.

  ‘Take him to the station, Viv. Charge him with the attempted theft of a crate of lager. Get the value from Rawlings before you go,’ Nash turned away.

  ‘Hang on a minute. What do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to know what time you found the body. If you can’t remember, check the time of the call on your mobile. I want to know what you saw. In other words, I want the lot.’

  ‘It’d just happened, I mean literally that second. I went out with the keg, the yard was empty and the gate was shut. I’d already stashed the crate of lager in the Ladies after Rawlings went upstairs. There were no women in the bar, see, and I figured it’d be safe until my mate came along. I came back inside, picked up the crate, put it on top of the stack and that’s when I looked round and saw her. Lizzie I mean, lying there with this bloody big knife stuck out of her chest. She wasn’t moving. The gate was open, and I got a glimpse of somebody. I didn’t see them proper, just a blur.’

  ‘Then what did you do?’

  ‘I went to the gate and looked down the alley.’

  ‘What did you see?’ Nash’s tone was patience itself.

  ‘I saw somebody legging it.’

  ‘Man or woman? Can you describe them?’

  ‘Could be either. Maybe a bit taller than Rawlings. Wearing jeans and a brown jacket, one of those short ones, a bomber jacket. Not fat, not skinny, dark hair, could have been black.’

  ‘Is that everything?’

  ‘That’s everything. Honest.’

  ‘Right, Viv, take him to the station.’ The barman began to protest, but Nash raised a hand. ‘Get a formal statement from him. Then I want a list of all the customers who scarpered before we arrived, plus the names of all the regulars he can think of, both male and female. I’ll get Clara to do the same with the landlord, then I want the two of you to visit everyone on the two lists.’

  ‘You think it was one of the customers?’

  ‘I reckon so. Only the regulars would have known about the short cut through the alley.’

  ‘Yes, but this’ll scupper our interviews at Rushton’s.’

  ‘I’ll attend to them.’

  Nash repeated his instructions to Mironova. ‘Remember to keep your eyes open for that jacket.’

  Before he left, he updated Pratt, ‘I need to get back to Rushton’s to interview the rest of the workers.’

  ‘Okay, Mike, I’ll run the crime scene and we’ll meet back at the station.’

  The interview session took longer than the earlier one, principally because Nash had to take all his own notes. By the time he’d finished and returned to the station it was past six o’clock. His arrival coincided with that of Tom Pratt. He responded to Nash’s question with a despondent shake of the head. ‘I’ve stood the search teams down for tonight. They’ll start again at first light. You had any thoughts about the Barton murder?’

  ‘My guess would be Lizzie’s complex social life was behind it. That reminds me, I should have asked for child welfare officers and a social worker to go to the house and look after the kids, but with everything else that was going on I clean forgot.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen to it. I arranged for Mironova and Pearce to drop in and talk to the kids after they finished checking the addresses the landlord gave them.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom.’

  Their conversation was interrupted by Mironova and Pearce’s return.

  ‘Got anything?’ Nash asked.

  ‘Nothing significant. Certainly nobody with dark hair who owned up to having a brown bomber jacket,’ Clara smiled.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Viv asked one woman if she’d mind him looking through her wardrobe. She said, “You’re welcome, love. You’ll not find anything your size but you can get into my knickers any time you like”. He didn’t ask again.’

  ‘She was the only dark haired woman we saw,’ Pearce said defensively. ‘Most of them were blonde, brassy blonde at that.’

  ‘What sort of reaction did you get when you told them why you were there? Was there any hostility towards the victim? From the women in particular?’

  Mironova shook her head. ‘None of them seemed against her, and most were shocked at the news. Most of them knew their partner had been with Lizzie at one time or another. One woman said, “At least when he was screwing her, he was leaving me alone”.’

  ‘How did you get on at the Barton house?’

  Clara grimaced. ‘Whatever else she was, there’s no doubt she was a good mother. Her eldest is eighteen, the youngest only six, but they obviously all get on well and thought the world of their mum. They were all distraught, that’s natural, and it occurred to me the kids and their mother had struck up some sort of bond against whatever life threw at them. The house itself was clean and tidy and so were the kids. None of them knew anything that could help us. I think perhaps Lizzie kept that side of her life from them as much as possible. To be honest, the state they were in, I wasn’t prepared to push too hard.’

  ‘We had a word with a few of the neighbours whilst we were there,’ Pearce added. ‘They all gang up against the police on that estate anyway, but once they knew the reason, they loosened up a bit. Nobody objected to Lizzie’s lifestyle. They all commented about it, but not maliciously and none of them could think of a reason for anyone to harm her.’

  ‘I reckon that’s about it for today,’ Pratt suggested. ‘I think we should shut up shop for the night. God knows what tomorrow’s going to throw at us.’

  Nash agreed. ‘I reckon we’re going to have to wait for the SOCO report and the results of the post-mortem before we can do much more. I don’t know about the rest of
you, but I’m famished. I haven’t eaten a thing since breakfast, and that feels like it was three days ago. Anyone fancy a quick meal?’

  Pratt excused himself, but the others settled on the Italian restaurant in the High Street where they steered clear of the subject of work, Nash’s only reference being in response to Mironova’s question.

  ‘No, I haven’t had time to look at any of the PNC stuff. I’ve got the papers in my briefcase. I’ll study them later.’

  Nash’s plans got waylaid. He’d barely got home when the doorbell rang. He was surprised to find Lauren Robbins standing outside. She smiled. ‘I switched shifts today. I’m due back in Cheshire the day after tomorrow and this will be the last chance I have to see you before I go. So I thought I’d better bring you a leaving present.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Me.’

  She stepped inside the hall and let the door swing to behind her. She reached forward and took his hand. Nash’s voice was husky with desire, ‘Let’s go unwrap my present.’

  Sarah started to regain consciousness. She daren’t open her eyes. The memory of what she’d seen was too horrible. She was lying down again, stretched out and wasn’t tied up at all. What had woken her? She hadn’t wanted to wake up. Consciousness brought terror and unspeakable memories. She heard a noise, a pleasant sound, a musical jingling, tuneless yet melodic.

  Her clothing had been changed again. She was no longer wearing the evening dress nor had her jeans been returned. The garment she had on was loose fitting, a type of soft brushed cotton she guessed as she felt it against her thigh. She moved slightly and realized that her underwear had been removed. This disturbed her and she shifted uneasily.

  She heard his voice, he was addressing her. She had no name for him. What conscious thought she was capable of just labelled him as ‘he’. ‘Sarah dear, would you like something to drink?’

  Her mouth and throat were parched. Her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth. She managed to croak, ‘Yes, please.’

  As his arm went round her, she managed to repress a shiver of repugnance. He lifted her gently to a sitting position and supported her. Sarah still dared not open her eyes. She felt the cold rim of a glass touch her lips. ‘Sip it slowly, Sarah, there’s a dear.’