Ash and Bone

19

There was a photograph of Maddy Birch on the wall, staring back at the camera, unsmiling; recent, Elder assumed, lines on her face she'd not have liked, the odd grey hair.

Neither Karen Shields nor Mike Ramsden was on the premises; the message Karen had left was vague, they might be back, they might not.

A detailed map showed where Maddy's body had lain, where her clothing, her possessions had been found. Elder remembered standing there that morning, the relative quiet in the midst of so much inner-city activity and noise; imagined it again as it would have been that night, that evening. Maddy waiting, shifting her sports bag from one shoulder to the other, glancing again at her watch, the hands luminous in the half-dark.

Elder looked at the photographs once more, Polaroids taken at the scene. Maddy's arms were bare. No watch.

DS Sheridan was ensconced behind several hundred megabytes of PC.

'Sherry,' Elder said, 'disturb you for a minute?'

Sheridan pressed 'save', removed his glasses and blinked. 'Go ahead.'

'Her watch. Maddy's watch. Was she wearing one that evening? Do we know?'

Sheridan shook his head. 'Nothing listed as far as I can remember. I can check, but no, I'm pretty certain.'

'How many officers do you know,' Elder said, 'who don't wear a watch?'

'Not to say she wore one off duty.'

'In which case she'd have left it at home. The stuff that was in her flat, where's it all now?'

'As far as I know, everything was packed up and sent to her mother.'

'But there'll be an inventory?'

Sheridan nodded towards the computer. 'On here somewhere.'

'Check it out for me, would you? And maybe you could pass a message to double-check with the mother?'

'Will do.'

'Oh, and Sherry, one other thing. Maddy's arrest record. Anyone who's been inside and recently released. That's been checked, I suppose?'

Sheridan nodded. 'One of the first things we did. Not sure offhand how far back we went, though. I can get you a list.'

'Thanks. Let's make sure we looked at Lincoln as well. Someone she put down for a long stretch, maybe, who might have had reason to feel aggrieved, bear a grudge.'

'Okay.'

'Thanks, Sherry.' Elder rested a hand briefly on his shoulder. Get the wrong side of the office manager, he knew, and you were pushing a boulder uphill from day one.

Steve Kennet was four storeys up, sitting astride a roof beam atop one of those late-Victorian semi-detached houses that, in Dartmouth Park, fetched upwards of a million and a quarter pounds, a million and a half. Elder shouted upwards, raising his voice above the distortions of a small transistor radio that was dangling from the scaffolding. After several moments of misunderstanding, Kennet came down cheerfully enough, wiping his hands on a piece of towel hanging from his belt.

'How's it going?' Elder asked, nodding back up.

Kennet's smile was honest and open. 'Should've been finished well before Christmas. Would have been if not for the weather. Two blokes I work with've already started on another place up Highgate Hill. Part of the old hospital. Turning it into flats.'

'You don't mind if I ask you a few questions about Maddy?'

'Still got nobody, huh?'

'Not yet.'

Kennet cleared his throat of dust and spat neatly into the side of the road. 'Go ahead.'

Before sitting on the low wall outside the house, Kennet took a slender pouch of tobacco from the back pocket of his jeans, a packet of papers from the top pocket of his plaid shirt. His face and the backs of his hands were streaked with dirt and dust.

Elder sat down alongside him.

On the opposite side of the street, a young au pair went by pushing a small child in a buggy, talking excitedly into her mobile phone in a language Elder didn't understand.

Methodically, Kennet began to roll a cigarette.

'Maddy, how did you meet her?' Elder asked.

'Usual way, in a pub. Holloway. She was there with that pal of hers. Vanessa. To be honest, that's who I was interested in first off. Vanessa. You've met her?'

Elder nodded.

'Then you'll know what I mean.' Kennet wet the edge of the paper with his tongue. 'Up front, I s'pose that's what you'd say. Not shy about coming forward.' When his lighter didn't work first time, he gave it a quick shake. 'I was with a mate. We went over and sat with them. His idea, really. After a bit, my mate drifted off. Vanessa, she was dead lively – she'd had a few, I dare say – whereas Maddy, mostly she was just sitting there, smiling a little, you know, not unfriendly, but not – what could I say? – obvious. What she was after.'

'And you liked that?' Elder said.

Kennet grinned. 'S'pose I did. What bloke wouldn't? End of the evening I got both their numbers, but it was Maddy I called. She seemed surprised, I remember that. Thought I'd made a mistake, got the numbers mixed up.'

'And you went out with her for how long?'

'Few months. Three. Couldn't've been more.' He clicked his lighter again with no response. 'Haven't got a light, have you?'

"Fraid not.'

Kennet crossed the pavement to the car parked at the kerb, unlocked it and reached inside the dash for a box of matches.

'You didn't get on as well as you'd thought,' Elder said.

Kennet dropped the spent match towards the gutter and drew deep on his cigarette. 'No, it wasn't that. We got on fine. Least I thought we did. It was just – oh, I don't know, what would you call it? – circumstances, I suppose. And, to be honest, I think she lost interest. We were supposed to meet a few times and she called up, more or less last-minute, and cancelled. Got so every time the phone rang I knew that's what it was going to be.'

He looked at Elder and then off down the street.

'So you broke it off?' Elder said.

'Yes.'

'You did?'

'Yes.' More emphatically this time.

'Not Maddy?'

'No. Look -'

'It's okay. I'm just trying to get a clear picture of what happened.'

'Why?'

'What do you mean?'

'Why is it so important? Why d'you need to know? I've been through all this before, you know.'

'I know. It's just right now I don't know what's important and what's not.'

'And you think this might be?'

'It's possible, like I say.'

Kennet shook his head in disbelief. 'Glenn Close, right?'

'I'm sorry?'

'Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Can't stand being dumped. Attacks Michael Douglas with a knife. You think that's me.'

'Michael Douglas?'

'Glenn Close.'

'Is it?'

'Did I go after Maddy with a knife?'

'Did you?'

'No, I did not.'

'Of course not.'

Kennet's roll-up had gone out and he lit it again at the second attempt.

'Do you know if Maddy was seeing anyone else?' Elder asked.

'While she was seeing me, you mean?'

'Then or later.'

'Then I don't think so, later I wouldn't know.'

'You didn't keep in touch?'

Kennet shook his head. 'Clean break. Besides, once I'd said, you know, I thought we should stop seeing one another, she agreed it was for the best. I certainly didn't want to mess her around.'

He got to his feet and glanced towards the roof.

'I really should be getting back to work.'

Elder held out a hand. 'Thanks for your time.'

Kennet's grasp was firm. 'Catch him, right?'

'Right.'

'And hey!'

'Yes?'

'Happy New Year.'

Elder watched as Kennet climbed back up the scaffolding without putting a foot wrong, without missing a beat.