The Woman in the Peacock Patterned Coat

by Jennifer Jones

  ‘I just want her to come back. It’s lonely being by yourself, you know?’

  ‘Yes, I do know.’

  He had just reached the bottom of the stairs when to his dismay Andrew Bryson came out of his flat. The moment the man saw him his face went dark with fury and he shouted, pointing at him,

  ‘You have ruined my life!’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘Yes! I wasn’t hurting anybody! I wasn’t …’

  Neil saw red. Grabbing Andrew by the collar he man-handled him back into his flat, kicking the door shut behind him. Then he pushed him away, hard, so that the man staggered and almost fell.

  ‘You can’t touch me like that! I’m making a complaint!’

  ‘Go right ahead. Of course you’re hurting people! Take some responsibility! An old lady … that young couple … and how many others, Bryson? How many others have you watched, doing what you do, with them not knowing? You’ve been getting away with this for years, haven’t you?’

  Andrew smiled. ‘But that’s just the point, Inspector. If people don’t know, how is it hurting them? I’m very discreet, no-one was ever supposed to see …’

  It was all Neil could do not to punch him in the face. ‘Right. And if they do, that’s just their tough luck? Well, I know what you did to your neighbour upstairs, Bryson. It wasn’t just watching then, was it? And if he decides to press charges, which I’m hoping he will, you’re looking at a stretch in jail. Maybe then you’ll face up to what you’re doing.’

  Fear flickered for a moment in Andrew’s eyes, but he said,

  ‘Well, it’s his word against mine.’

  ‘Maybe. But put his story with the other two charges, and I don’t think a court will have any trouble believing it, do you? Oh, and here’s your fucking diary.’ He took it from his pocket and flung it down with such force that the spine broke.

  Andrew immediately stooped for it and as he picked it up half the pages fell out. He gave a low cry.

  ‘You bastard,’ he said. ‘Get out!’

  ‘I promise you, if you’re responsible for Katie Campbell’s death …’

  ‘I’m not! You know I’m not! You’ve read the diary. It’s all there! You know it is!’

  ‘Oh, but it’s not, is it?’

  ‘It is! Here …’ as Andrew searched frantically for the page Neil turned and walked out, slamming the door.

  ***

  By the time Neil got home he had calmed down somewhat. Janey met him at the door. She was wearing a short, floral cotton frock, her hair was caught back in a ponytail, and there was a streak of pink paint on her cheek. She looked immensely happy.

  ‘Come and see my painting!’

  It was a representation of Ruth Harrison’s rose garden, an abstract, the idea of roses rather than the roses themselves. Neil stood, entranced, gazing at the mesmerising swirls of vivid colours that drew the eye in continual movement across the canvas. It was an uplifting painting, a joyous painting, and it brightened his heart after such a trying day.

  ‘Janey, it’s amazing. I hope this doesn’t sound patronising, but I think you’re getting better and better.’

  She was pleased. ‘I’m proud of it.’

  He turned to her. ‘Don’t sell it. Please? Let’s hang it in the lounge.’

  Janey laughed. ‘Well, the beauty of painting from a photograph is I can do as many versions of it as I want. You captured this garden at just the right moment, Neil. If you went back today the roses would be overblown, losing their petals, but with this photo I can reproduce it forever in all its perfection.’

  ‘Can I take a photo, to show the owner?’

  ‘Of course.’ She looked suddenly a bit downcast. ‘It … it means I didn’t get out today – I was so absorbed in what I was doing, wanting to get it finished.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you yesterday you were never to apologise for that?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said meekly.

  ‘Why don’t we go for a walk now? It’s a lovely evening.’

  But once they were out on the pavement he changed his mind and suggested they go to the park instead.

  They sat on a bench, holding hands, not talking much. Neil was content just to watch the humdrum of everyday life – people walking their dogs, a group of teenagers kicking a ball, toddlers running around squealing, or playing with toys. A child’s ball sailed past and Janey leapt to her feet to retrieve it. As she carried it back, laughing, to its owner, Neil watched her, in this moment of complete unselfconsciousness, and felt a tug at his heart. When she came back he drew her down beside him, resting an arm around her shoulder.

  ‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘Shall we go back?’

  ‘It’s been a hell of a day, Janey. An absolute hell of a day.’

  ‘Would you like to talk about it?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s just work. A particularly nasty character. But sitting here, watching the routine of life play out, reminds me that I only deal with a fraction of the population, that most people are decent, and considerate, doing no harm …’ He laughed suddenly, kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m getting maudlin in my middle age. Yes, let’s go home.’

  Chapter 10

  Shaun Taverner was not a man of particularly fastidious habits. So much was evident from the report which was waiting on Neil’s desk the following morning. In fact, his car could best be described as a mobile rubbish tip. Newspapers dating back to February on the back floor and seat, sweet wrappers and empty crisp packets in the driver’s door compartment, the boot filled with all sorts of junk – bags of old clothes, plastic plant pots with dirt still clinging to them, a broken umbrella, more newspapers, this time dated the previous year. His house was tidier, but not especially clean – there was dust everywhere, the carpet had obviously not been vacuumed in weeks, and the kitchen and bathroom surfaces looked as if they received only an occasional perfunctory wipe. The Forensics team had been thorough, lifting hundreds of fingerprints, hair samples, even some fingernail clippings. They were almost one hundred per cent certain that Katie had never been in the car, and it would appear as if she had never set foot in the house, either.

  What did that mean? Neil turned his attention to the rest of the file.

  Shaun Taverner worked as an accounts clerk for a large furniture store in East Acton. The manager described him as punctual, conscientious, good at his job, but otherwise rather quiet and shy. He never socialised with the other workers after hours, and they had given up inviting him. In the lunchroom he would eat his home-made ham or cheese sandwich and piece of fruit with his attention fixed on the daily newspaper, not joining in the general conversation. He had been known to blush at crude jokes. The manager’s PA, however, a young woman called Tamsin, described him as sweet and polite, always holding doors open for her, asking after her grandmother who was in a care home, chatting occasionally about the antics of her miniature poodle Fred. He had bought her flowers for her birthday earlier that year.

  He had never been in trouble with the police, not even so much as a speeding ticket. He had a few thousand pounds in the bank, wasn’t in any debt, always paid his bills on time. His ex-girlfriend had been living with him until the beginning of March, his mother lived a couple of streets away, with her second husband. The house Shaun lived in was his childhood home, though he had moved out for a period in his late teens. But when his mother had re-married, after his father had died in an industrial accident, she had signed the property over to him. All right for some, thought Neil, owning a three-bedroomed free-standing house and garage outright before you were twenty-five.

  None of his neighbours or anyone in the surrounding streets could remember a woman matching Katie’s description. And why would they? The residents at the Ellesmere Road flats, Ruth Harrison, they had all seen Katie several times, naturally they would recognise her photo. But to catch a glimpse of someone walking down the street, why would you remember that six weeks later? Likewise no-one was able to recall any unusual activity, such as loud arguments, p
eople out in the street late at night, cars starting up in the early hours.

  The police had spoken at some length with Shaun’s elderly neighbour, a Mrs Edna Morrissey, and Neil read through the transcript with a great deal of interest. She had known Shaun since he was born, she used to babysit him when he was little. He had been a quiet, sweet-natured boy, and he had grown into a quiet, sweet-natured young man, who worked hard in his garden, and never gave her any cause for complaint. She would know if he ever started his car up late at night because the engine had a distinctive rattle and she was a light sleeper, and no, he never had, not for months and months. They could trust her on that, she had a very good memory. In fact, he only used his car on Saturday afternoons to do his shopping, and he always took her with him so she could do hers. Sometimes, if she wasn’t feeling up to the trip, she gave him her list, and he always got it right – he knew what brands she liked, her favourite magazines, all that. He wasn’t very chatty, kept his personal business private, but they did talk about little things – programmes on the telly, things they had read in the local paper, or seen on the news, that sort of stuff. His girlfriend – ex-girlfriend now – was a lovely girl, long blonde hair and blue eyes, Karen her name was. She had moved in with Shaun the previous year, and when she had moved out Shaun had been down in the dumps for weeks. Then he had started looking happier again, and one Thursday night he had turned up on her doorstep saying could he do any shopping for her as he was going away for the weekend and wouldn’t be able to take her on the Saturday. This must be, oh, a month and a half ago, mid-May. It’s a girl, isn’t it? she had asked, and he had blushed, but said, yes, someone he had been getting to know, and she was really lovely and they were going to have a really good time. But then he had come around on the Saturday about three and said he could take her after all, that the trip hadn’t gone ahead. He looked really terrible – unshaven, tired – in fact he had looked so tired she was worried he was going to fall asleep at the wheel and kill them both. She’d tried to ask what had happened, but he had just said, she changed her mind, he didn’t want to talk about it. He’d asked her something a bit odd, too – he’d asked her to keep an eye on the house for him whenever he was out, let him know if she saw anyone hanging about. Well, she did her best, but she couldn’t watch every minute, could she? Most afternoons she took the bus down to the community centre for a bit of company. She couldn’t think what had happened to suddenly make him so jumpy, it wasn’t like there’d been a big jump in burglaries or anything.

  Neil pondered her statement for a few minutes. Although it seemed in parts to corroborate Shaun’s story, there was nothing in it to give him a solid alibi. He was just leaving his office to go to the cells when Graeme Gillespie came up.

  ‘Ah, Neil! I was just coming to see you. A quick word, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Back in Neil’s office, Graeme walked over to the window, looked out for a few moments, then turned back to where Neil hovered uncertainly by his desk.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘What has Andrew Bryson done to get under your skin? I’ve just had the man almost bursting a blood vessel in my office, ranting about assault, destruction of property …’

  Neil swallowed hard. ‘Well, he’s got some nerve, I’ll give him that. What did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him to take a hike. But Neil … you’ve dealt with sex offenders before. If you’re losing perspective, because of what happened to Janey …’

  ‘No, Sir, I’m not. It’s just … I was wrong about him. I …’

  ‘Oh, and no-one else in this station has ever been wrong about anyone before? Come on, Neil.’

  ‘I thought he was harmless. A harmless old man with maybe an overactive libido. When instead every time I blink, I learn something worse about him.’ He told Graeme about Josh Martin. ‘And yes, it galls me that he’s going to get away with it. I’m sorry I lost my temper.’

  ‘Yes. Well, it looks like you’re going to have to let it go. Keep off him, Neil, or you are going to find yourself facing a charge of harassment.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘OK. How are you getting on with Shaun Taverner?’

  Neil brought him up-to-date. ‘I’m going to send someone out to talk to his mother, his ex-girlfriend, a couple of male friends whose details were in his mobile phone. And I’m going to talk to him again this morning, but if he sticks to his story we’re going to have to let him go. There’s nothing to hold him on.’

  ‘But if Taverner’s innocent then where on earth is she?’

  ‘I know we were hoping that Katie and Taverner were together somewhere, either on an extended holiday, or she’d moved into his place and for whatever reason hadn’t returned to her flat to collect her things. Now we know that’s not the case. But we still don’t have any real proof that she’s dead, though I’ve no idea where else she might be. But if she was murdered, and Taverner’s not our man … well … there’s someone else who’s a possibility, Sir – Andrew Bryson. You say keep off him, but he had a motive, the opportunity …’ He related the details of Bryson’s last encounter with Katie Campbell.

  ‘That’s a pretty thin motive.’

  ‘All right. But what if he struck her, and she fell against the stair, or the bannister … the same sort of scenario I’ve imagined for Shaun Taverner could just as easily apply to him. And he was very agitated that night, people noticed he was acting out of character.’

  ‘This is all just conjecture, Neil. Unless you find some solid evidence to back you up, don’t even think of bringing him in. I mean it. You’re on very thin ice here, you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ***

  ‘All right, Shaun, let’s try this again, shall we? What time did Katie arrive at your house?’

  ‘She didn’t! She never arrived at my house. I’ve already told you that and if you keep questioning me as if she did I’m not going to say another word.’

  ‘We know she left her flat at around five o’clock to head over to your place. If she never arrived, then what do you think happened, Shaun?’

  Shaun shrugged. ‘She just changed her mind, I suppose.’

  ‘She didn’t just change her mind! She’s missing, Shaun! She hasn’t been seen for over six weeks, not since that Friday night. So if she never made it to your house, then what do you think happened?’

  ‘M-maybe she was attacked … on the way, or … or dragged into a car …’

  ‘In broad daylight? Between five and six o’clock at night, when thousands of people are making their way home from work? And no-one saw anything, heard anything, reported anything? It seems very unlikely, don’t you think?’

  ‘Then I don’t know what happened! All I know is she never showed up. I’m not a murderer! You ask anyone who knows me, they’ll all tell you the same – I’m not a killer!’

  ‘Your car’s in a bit of a state, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your car. According to the report, it’s full of rubbish. Some of it quite old.’

  ‘S-so?’

  ‘So … if I was about to take a young woman away for the weekend, someone I was just meeting for the first time, I think I’d make an effort to tidy it up, make a good impression, all that.’

  ‘Well … well, we weren’t going in my car. We were going on the train.’

  ‘I’m sorry? Could you run that by me again?’

  ‘We … well, we … we weren’t really planning on doing much sightseeing, so we agreed we’d go down on the train.’

  ‘Are you seriously expecting me to believe that Katie would go all the way from Victoria Station out to your place, only to turn around and go all the way back again! Why didn’t the two of you just arrange to meet at Victoria?’

  ‘That’s what I suggested. But she insisted. She … she said it must be nice, owning my own place, having a garden, and she wanted to have a look at it, before we went away. She … she seemed to hint that she’d especially like to s
ee the … the bedroom.’ He stood up. ‘I want to go now. I haven’t done anything wrong and I want to go. I know the rules. I know you can’t keep me here without any evidence. I know you’ll have searched my place. And you won’t have found anything because she was never there. So I want to go.’

  ‘Sit down, Shaun. I decide when this interview is finished. And it isn’t. So sit down.’

  Shaun sat. He looked Neil directly in the eyes. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  Neil looked back at him impassively for several minutes. Under his scrutiny the young man began to fidget but his gaze remained fixed on Neil’s face, scared but defiant. Finally Neil said,

  ‘Let’s talk about Katie.’

  ‘W-what do you mean?’

  ‘You said you got to know her quite well, all those nights in the chat room with her. So tell me what you got to know. Where was she working, for instance?’

  ‘She told me she was doing casual work, cash in hand. She said she’d jump on the train or Tube, go where the mood took her, then walk around the neighbourhood, and if she saw a garden that needed a bit of work – weeding, say, or mowing, she’d knock on the door and offer to do it. She said more often than not it would be an elderly person or someone with a disability who couldn’t manage it by themselves and they’d be really grateful. She said they trusted her because she was a young woman. She’d ask for twenty pounds but they usually gave her a lot more than that, sometimes even fifty. It was a nice little earner, she said. Some of them even asked her to go back on a regular basis.’

  ‘But if she was on foot, she wouldn’t have had any garden tools, or a lawn mower …’

  ‘That was the thing, though. They’d have them, just sitting in their sheds or garages. If they didn’t she’d just have to say sorry and go away.’

  She’d never asked Ruth Harrison if she could help in her garden. Then again, roses probably required a bit of specialist knowledge which Katie mightn’t have had.