When the Music's Over

6

It was Monday morning, five days since the unidentified body had been found on Bradham Lane, and the eight-mile stretch was still closed to traffic in the hope that Stefan’s team would unearth some significant clue that had so far eluded their efforts. Fortunately, the lane was so little used that there was no immediate clamour for its reopening. A couple of cyclists had written letters to the local paper, but that was about all. Everyone else who had used it as a pleasant and convenient alternative had returned to the A1 temporarily without complaint.

Every day the media gathered at both ends of the lane, but the scene was well guarded, with the mobile crime unit blocking the top end. One or two hardy reporters had tried sneaking across the fields to take photographs, but the vigilant eyes of the officers guarding the inner scene, the immediate area in which the body had been found, had spotted them in time. Even so, a few long-distance shots had appeared, the kind that have to be published with a circle added to pinpoint where the crime happened. Desperate for any sort of crime-scene image, one less reputable newspaper had even published a shot of a similar spot on a different road and claimed it as the place where the battered and broken body of the young girl was discovered. Both the cyclist who had found the body, Roger Stanford, and the Ketteridges on the nearest farm, had come under media siege at one point or another. As Stanford seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown and Mrs Ketteridge lived in fear of losing her baby, the local police had seen all the interlopers off and posted guards around the farm and Stanford’s house.

The investigation had naturally slowed down over the weekend, especially as the budget allowed for little or no overtime. In the meantime, information wasn’t exactly pouring in. The CSIs had made no more headway and Jazz Singh had done about as much as she could with the DNA.

Late that morning, Gerry was sitting at her computer in the squad room when the telephone rang. She picked up the handset and announced her rank and name. It was one of the community support officers working the Bradham Lane case, calling from the mobile crime scene unit. ‘Sorry to bother you, DC Masterson,’ she said, but I’ve got a caller on the hotline who insists on speaking to the person in charge of the investigation.’

‘That would be DI Cabbot,’ said Gerry. ‘Or DCI Banks.’

‘They’re not around. I rang you because the caller sounds a bit spooked. Young. Can I put her through? Maybe you could talk to her?’

‘Put her through.’

She waited a few moments, and a small, scared voice came on the line. ‘Hello? Hello? Do you know about the girl in Bradham Lane, the one whose picture was on telly?’

‘I’m DC Masterson,’ said Gerry. ‘And I’m working on the case. Do you know who she is? Can you help us?’

‘I don’t know. Is the drawing a good likeness? Have you actually seen her?’

‘I was there when she was found,’ Gerry said. It was more or less true. ‘Yes, I saw her. It’s a good likeness.’

‘It is her, isn’t it? Was she, I mean...?’

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m OK. Yes. It’s just that she was my best friend. It’s her. It looks like her. I haven’t seen her for days. And they...’

Gerry felt her blood turn cold. ‘Who?’ she said. ‘Who are they?’

‘I can’t. They’ll kill me, too.’

‘It’s all right, love,’ Gerry said, as gently as she could. ‘Can you tell me who she is, then?’

‘Yes. It’s Mimsy.’

‘Mimsy?’

‘Mimsy Moffat.’ The caller paused. ‘We used to tease her about that,’ she said. ‘ “All mimsy were the borogoves.” She loved Alice. I remember when we talked about starting a band. We were going to call ourselves Mimsy and the Borogoves.’

Gerry knew ‘Jabberwocky’. She had been a big Lewis Carroll fan when she was at school, and she still read the Alice stories once a year. ‘That’s a cute name. You can sing and play instruments?’

‘No. It was just blethering.’

‘You said “we”. “We used to tease her.” Who else?’

‘Just me, really.’

‘Can you tell me where Mimsy lived?’

‘On the estate. Number fourteen Southam Terrace.’

‘Where’s that? What estate?’

‘Wytherton Heights.’

‘Wytherton?’

‘Teesside. Near Middlesbrough.’

‘OK. My name’s Gerry. What’s yours, love?’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you. Nobody must know.’ Then she hung up, or switched off her mobile. Gerry immediately hit redial but her call went through to a generic answering service, the kind you get with a pay-as-you-go mobile when you don’t bother to personalise it. She left her name and mobile number just in case, then returned to her computer screen and clicked through to Google Maps.

Wytherton was an area that clung like a boil to the arse of Teesside between Stockton and Middlesbrough, and Wytherton Heights was a sprawling square mile of council estates fringed in the north by a forest of sixties tower blocks and to the south by the main Wytherton Road. Town Street bisected the estate about a quarter of a mile up from Wytherton Road. Southam Terrace, Gerry discovered, lay somewhere near the middle of the largest section.

What little information Gerry could find on the estate told her that it was a mix of post-war council housing. Some people who lived there had bought their houses from the council in the eighties or later, and there were a few older private houses scattered around the edges, mostly turned into student bedsits to service the nearby college. The Google Maps satellite images showed a mix of domestic architecture, from the grime-encrusted back-to-backs and through terraces to sixties brick council houses, maisonettes and old tower blocks. The aerial photographs she managed to dredge up showed higgledy-piggledy streets straggling west of a wasteland of abandoned factory yards with high fences scrolled with barbed wire, or walls topped with broken glass. To these, west of the houses, by the canal, stood a modern shopping centre.

Gerry didn’t think she was a snob, but she had been brought up in a nice Georgian semi in a suburb of Liverpool called Crosby, not far from the Irish Sea. She had attended Merchant Taylors’ Girls School before reading law at Cambridge. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father a solicitor and, needless to say, her decision to join the police after university had caused a family row or two. She wasn’t certain why she had done it, herself, only that she knew she didn’t want an academic career, and she didn’t want to be a lawyer. She thought that in the police she might at least get the chance to use her initiative now and then, find a little excitement, even danger, and that every day would be different. She could also use her IT skills. And Gerry wasn’t without ambition. If she did the right courses and was successful in her fieldwork, she knew fast-track promotion was a strong possibility for someone like her. The sky was the limit. She knew it sounded silly, and maybe joining the police was the wrong way to go about it, but she might even one day end up running MI5, like Stella Rimington, whose books she enjoyed. One of her friends had been recruited at Cambridge, and she remembered feeling jealous that she hadn’t been singled out, too. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t reading politics or Middle Eastern languages.

No matter how much she tried to be ‘one of the lads’, though, she knew she was posh when it came right down to it. Places like Wytherton Heights gave her the creeps. A big godforsaken ugly splodge of urban hell stuck between the beauties of the North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales National Park, it might as well have signs saying no go area in big letters all over it. Perhaps she was showing her upper-middle-class upbringing, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it was the sort of area that boasted a tattoo shop or two as well as a kebab and pizza takeaway. As for whether it was home to a large Asian population, she had no idea, though she could soon find out.

Gerry felt immediately guilty for being so judgemental. She had always prided herself on being a nice, decent, thoughtful person, kind to all and sundry, but perhaps her short time in the police had changed her. DI Cabbot could be cynical at times, so perhaps some of that was rubbing off on her. One glance at the Wytherton Heights estate onscreen was enough to tell her that she wouldn’t like visiting it.

But this wasn’t the time for self-analysis, she thought, getting to her feet. Like it or not, it was time to pick up her boss from County HQ and whisk them both up to Southam Terrace, Wytherton Heights. Maybe it would turn out to be a much nicer place than she thought.

The Wakefield office of the West Yorkshire Archive Service was unfortunately not a modern air-conditioned building, being instead housed in the old Registry of Deeds office, a 1930s building on Newstead Road. Ken Blackstone handed over the form he had filled out, and after he and Banks had shown their warrant cards, Ms Brindley made a quick search to locate the occurrence book. She soon came back with the volume they wanted and placed it on the table in front of them.

‘It would have been the end of August or beginning of September, 1967,’ Banks said. ‘I don’t know the exact date, but it was before school started again.’

It didn’t take long to locate the brief, neatly written entry of the thirtieth of August 1967, at 2.35 p.m. Reading the unadorned entry, Banks could only imagine what that day had been like for Linda Palmer and her mother, perhaps agonising over whether to go, frightened, embarrassed, sitting on the bus to town not knowing what to expect. As it was only an occurrence book, not a statement, there was very little detail. The complainant was identified as ‘Linda Palmer’ and her mother’s presence was also noted. They had come with a ‘crime complaint’, which was further described as ‘indecent and unlawful’ in the description. There was no mention of rape, and Danny Caxton was not named. Detective Inspector Stanley Chadwick had talked to the complainant, but when it came to further action and result, there was nothing. Blackstone flipped forward a few pages to see if he could find anything else, but all the entries were similarly brief. They would need the case files or individual notebooks to find out any more, and they were gone, if there had, indeed, ever been any. Destroyed years ago, most likely.

Disappointed, Banks asked Ms Brindley if she would make a copy of the entry in question. It wasn’t much, but every little helped at this point.

‘As you can see,’ she said, ‘the occurrence book is rather large and heavy. It’s very awkward to fit in the photocopier. I’d suggest you use your mobile and take a digital photo, if that’s acceptable?”

‘Of course.’ Banks took out his mobile, positioned it carefully and took three photos, just to make certain. ‘Is there any way of finding out if anything came of this?’ he asked when he had finished.

‘Not without the records, no, and I’m afraid we don’t have those.’

‘I know,’ said Banks. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Well, let me see. We do have the court registers, so if anything went to court it would be listed in there.’

‘As far as we know, it didn’t,’ said Banks. ‘But thanks, anyway.’

‘No problem.’ Ms Brindley smiled and asked them if there was anything more they required.

‘No, thanks,’ said Blackstone. ‘You’ve been a great help. Thanks very much.’

Ms Brindley inclined her head briefly then drifted away. Banks and Blackstone made their way outside again, where it was marginally cooler than inside.

They found a pub with a beer garden not far from the cathedral and sat down at a table in the shade next to two young women struggling to control three small children, who already appeared to have ingested a surfeit of sugar. The pretty mother with the ring in her nose and a stud in her lower lip gave Banks a long-suffering glance, and he smiled at her.

It was a chain pub, but that was OK with Banks. At least it meant they would get their food quickly. Blackstone passed him a laminated menu. They both decided on the steak and mushroom pie special, and Blackstone went to get some drinks — Coke, as they both had to drive later — and put in their order at the bar. While he was away, the eldest of the children at the next table, perhaps about three, tottered over to Banks, grinning and slobbering drool down the front of his bib. The girl with the stud in her lip swept forward and picked him up with one arm in a surprisingly gentle and graceful motion, smiled sweetly at Banks and apologised.

When Blackstone got back, Banks raised his Coke. ‘Cheers. I didn’t notice you pursuing young Ms Brindley with quite the vigour I would have expected from you.’

‘Didn’t you notice the ring on her finger?’

‘Afraid not.’

‘Big sparkler. Probably zircon. Third finger of her left hand. Wasn’t there the last time I saw her.’

‘Too late, then.’

‘Story of my life. Cheers,’ said Blackstone. ‘I see from the news you’ve got a media circus on your hands up in Eastvale.’

‘Tell me about it. I’m sneaking around like a mischievous schoolboy. Our Media Relations Officer is about ready to blow a gasket. The mere mention of “Pakistani” sends him into conniptions.’

‘Pakistani?’

‘Annie might have a grooming case on her hands involving members of the British Pakistani community. Not a word, mind you.’

‘My lips are sealed.’

‘We think the girl was raped by three men and beaten to death by another on a remote country lane in our neck of the woods. Gerry’s just discovered who she was, and her home happens to be on a council estate that’s conveniently located just on our side of the county border.’

‘Nasty. I don’t suppose this Caxton business helps with the media relations, either?’

‘Oh, Adrian loves that,’ said Banks. ‘That’s his wet dream. It’s the race thing that’s got his knickers in a twist.’

The food came and they paused for a while to eat in silence. The pastry on Banks’s pie was soggy and the meat more gristle than steak. One of the other young children at the next table threw some cutlery on the grass and let out a piercing scream. Banks winced. The young woman picked up the spoon and smiled at him again.

‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get much from the archive,’ Blackstone said.

‘That’s OK. I didn’t expect anything more. There is one interesting piece of information, though.’

‘Oh?’

‘ “Chiller” Chadwick. I’ve come across him before on another old case. Always had my suspicions he was bent, but I could never prove it.’

‘I don’t suppose he’s still around?’ said Blackstone.

‘Died of a heart attack in March 1973, if I remember rightly.’

‘I think I know the case you mean,’ Blackstone said. ‘Wasn’t that the rock journalist connected with the murder at that Brimleigh rock festival in 1969? Chadwick would have been the SIO back then, right?’

‘That’s right,’ said Banks. ‘Linda Lofthouse, the Mad Hatters, Vic Greaves, all that lot. Seems a lifetime ago.’

‘1969?’

‘Our case. The journalist. 2006, wasn’t it? 1969 seems several lifetimes ago, and as for 1967...’

‘The Summer of Love.’

‘That’s right. Not for Linda Palmer, though. You know, Ken, there are a few leads in this that might not be too cold. I remember from the other case, we located Chadwick’s oppo, a DS Enderby, and he also had a DC called Bradley. I talked to Chadwick’s daughter Yvonne as well. There’s a chance he might have mentioned Linda Palmer or Danny Caxton to one of them. From what I heard about him, he struck me as a hard man, and not beyond a verbal or a beating, but I don’t think he was the kind of person who’d have liked being anyone’s fool, or in anyone’s pocket. Even Caxton’s.’

‘It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?’ said Blackstone. ‘Tracking them down. His daughter. This DC Bradley.’

‘Definitely. I’ve got their addresses back on the old case records in Eastvale. At least from 2006. But first I’ve got something I’d like you to do for me, if you can spare a couple of lads for a few hours.’

‘My team is at your command,’ said Blackstone.

Banks explained about the photo Linda Palmer remembered seeing and suggested starting with the Yorkshire Evening Post for October 1967.

‘Those old newspaper morgues are more complicated than you’d think,’ said Blackstone. ‘I suppose you know the old YEP building’s been knocked down and they’ve moved to Whitehall Road?’

‘Yes.’

‘The thing is, they always stored their photos by theme, not date, and I expect they still do.’

‘We’d need to go through the complete issues,’ Banks said. ‘The photo might be part of a story and we’d need to know that story. We don’t know the theme. Surely they’re on microfiche somewhere? Old newspapers are fragile, aren’t they?’

Blackstone considered for a moment. ‘I think your best bet is Leeds Central Library. They’ve got a Local Studies Department that has all the old YEPs on microfilm. It shouldn’t take too long to scroll through them. Would it be a problem, getting your victim to Leeds?’

‘I can’t see why,’ said Banks.

‘Then there’s no reason you shouldn’t do it tomorrow.’

‘That soon? Can you get it organised?’

‘Sure. I know some of the staff there. We use the facility often. I’ll have a word, let them know to get it set up. October 1967?

Banks pushed his plate of half-eaten pie aside. Blackstone followed suit. ‘If it’s going to be that easy, we might as well throw in September and November as well, if that’s no problem.’

‘Not at all. Early afternoon good?’

‘Fine with me. Thanks, Ken.’

‘Right, then. You know where the place is?’

‘I ought to do.’

‘I’ll ring you in the morning, tell you who to ask for.’

‘In that case,’ said Banks, ‘I’ll put off interviewing Bradley and Chadwick’s daughter until Linda’s had a chance to examine the photos. Who knows, I might have a few more things to ask them about if we get lucky on this.’ He finished his Coke and stood up. ‘Shall we?’

The young woman with the children gave Banks a weary smile as they left.

Blackstone nudged him. ‘You could have been in there, mate. I saw the way she was eyeing you. Ready-made family.’

Banks laughed. ‘Just what I need right now.’

Wytherton was about a forty-five-minute drive from Eastvale. At the heart of the Heights estate, Southam Terrace was a narrow, potholed street of through terrace houses blackened by years of industrial smoke. The council might well have restored the Victorian town hall to its former sandstone glory, but nobody had bothered sandblasting the streets of Wytherton Heights. Even the sunlight didn’t do much to brighten up the sooty facades and grimy slate roofs. Gerry parked her lime-green Corsa across from the Moffat house, and she and Annie walked over the hot tarmac. The smell of warm tar provoked in Annie a sudden memory of sitting by the roadside on hot summer days when she was a child, picking off chunks of softened tar and rolling them into balls.

The gate was closed, peeling green paint in need of a touch-up, and beyond it two children played on a postage-stamp lawn littered with bright-coloured plastic toys. The children, one about two, the other about five, looked up suspiciously from the structure they were building of different-coloured interlocking blocks.

‘That’s nice,’ said Annie, crouching. ‘What is it, a castle?’

‘Prison,’ said the five-year-old, and sniggered.

‘They learn young around here,’ Annie muttered, standing up. ‘Mum and Dad in?’

‘Dunno.’

Gerry knocked on the door, and they waited almost a full minute before anyone answered. They could hear the TV playing loudly inside, some overexcited sporting commentary, but nothing else. Eventually the door opened and a man in a grubby string vest stood in front of them. ‘Yeah? What is it?’

Annie flashed her warrant card. ‘Mr Moffat?’

‘No. Lenny Thornton.’

‘Is Mr Moffat at home?’

Thornton scratched his head. ‘Well, he was here maybe ten years or so ago, but it’ll be the missus you’re after. Well, the girlfriend. You know. Her name’s Moffat.’

‘Mimsy?’ said Gerry.

‘Bloody hell, no, pet. That’s her young lass. Sinead’s her mother.’ He had a strong Geordie accent. Annie was used to hearing it, but she could see Gerry struggling to understand.

‘Is Sinead Moffat in, then?’ As Annie spoke, she and Gerry were edging forward into the front room. Lenny Thornton edged back politely as they moved forward. Eventually they were able to shut the door behind them. The closed curtains let in a faint glow, but the main source of light was a large flickering TV screen showing an international football game. Maybe there was a big tournament on somewhere that Annie hadn’t heard about, but she thought it more likely the game was a repeat. When she saw who was playing, she knew it was. She had watched it several days ago.

‘Sinead’s out,’ said Thornton, ‘but you’s welcome to a cuppa, if you’s like.’ He subsided into a well-worn armchair, lit a cigarette and gestured to a teapot and a cluster of stained mugs on the table under the window. ‘Kettle’s in the kitchen.’

‘No, thanks.’ Annie glanced around the room. It was untidy, with stacks of magazines and articles of clothing strewn here and there. An unpleasant odour hung about the place: cigarette smoke, old socks and boiled cabbage. Then there was Lenny Thornton.

There are some men, Annie thought, such as Daniel Craig and Aidan Turner, who should be shirtless as often as possible, but Lenny Thornton wasn’t one of them. His hairy belly drooped over his belt, little squares of fat pushing through the net of his string vest, and his man-breasts wobbled when he moved. He could also do with a shave and a haircut, and probably a wash, too. A tin of Carlsberg Special Brew rested on one arm of his armchair and an ashtray on the other. Annie also noticed, as her eyes adjusted, that there was another person in the room, a man with long, greasy hair and a lined unshaven face, who might well be dead for all the sound he’d made or movement he’d shown. Annie thought he resembled a zombie biker in the dim light. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked.

‘That’s Sinead’s brother,’ Lenny Thornton answered. ‘Hasna moved from that chair in ten years. Except to go to the local, that is. Say hello to the polis, Johnny.’

Johnny gave what sounded like a grunt without taking his eyes away from the football game. The door on the other side of the room was open, and Annie could see through the kitchen and the open back door to the yard beyond, with its high brick wall and latched wooden gate. A bicycle without wheels leaned against the wall. She knew without looking that beyond the gate would be a narrow cobbled alley, and on the opposite side another backyard exactly the same. People used to have their WCs out there, but most had got indoor toilets these days and only used the old outhouses as storage sheds. At least a light breeze blew in through the open door. There were two hard-backed chairs at the table by the window, and Annie decided they were probably the safest place to sit, after she had moved a pile of old Racing Posts from one of them.

‘Do you know how long Sinead will be?’ she asked.

‘No telling with her when she goes out and about.’

‘Do you know where we can find her?’

‘Could be anywhere.’

Annie pressed on. ‘And Mimsy?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Her name’s Mimosa, by the way. Sinead says she named her after a posh drink she had at a wedding once. But everyone calls her Mimsy. ’Cept Sinead, that is.’

‘Any other children?’

‘She’s got an older brother.’

‘What’s he called? Buck’s Fizz?’

‘Come again?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Albert, he’s called. After his granddad. Silly name for a kid these days, I’d say.’

Albert and Mimosa, Annie thought. It sounded like a good stage name. What act would they perform? Magician and assistant? ‘Where’s Albert?’

‘He’s out an’ all.’

‘So there’s just you and Johnny here?’

‘That’s right, hen.’

Annie sighed. ‘Lucky us.’

‘So why don’t you just tell us what you want, then you can go about your business and we can get back to the footie.’

Annie glanced at the screen. ‘I’ve seen it,’ she said. ‘Croatia win 3–2 in extra time.’

Thornton glared at her. ‘You can be a right bitch, you know that, love?’

‘I’ve been called worse. Look,’ Annie went on, softening her tone. ‘I’ve got a serious job to do here, and you’re not being very helpful.’

‘I can’t tell you people are here when they’re not, can I? That’d be lying. You’re not asking me to lie to the polis, now, are you?’

‘OK, but I’m sure you could give us some idea of where Sinead is?’

‘I told you. I don’t know where she goes.’

‘What does she do? Has she got a job?’

‘Job? Nay, lass, none of us has a job. Everyone knows there’s no work around these parts, even the tarts what work at the Job Centre. Hasn’t been for years. The old uns’ll tell you it was Thatcher shutting down the steelworks and engineering factories. Even Johnny over there’s never had a job in his life, and he won’t see t’other side of forty again. Job?’

So Mimsy Moffat was probably third-generation unemployed, Annie realised. She thought for a moment, then opened her briefcase and slipped out a copy of the artist’s impression. He had tried to make Mimsy appear as alive and unblemished as possible, and succeeded to a large extent. She showed the image to Lenny Thornton. ‘Could this be Mimsy?’

Thornton squinted, then took the sheet of paper to the window and inched open the curtains to let the direct light fall on it. ‘That’s her,’ he said, handing it back. ‘To a tee. It’s bloody good, that is. Who’s been drawing her, then? Is it one of her own?’

‘She draws?’

‘Aye. Anything and everything. She’d draw the bloody kitchen sink if there was nothing else around.’ He glanced from Annie to Gerry, and Annie thought she could see fear in his eyes. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘It’s never good news, having the polis around. Is something wrong?’

‘It’s not one of Mimsy’s drawings,’ Annie said. ‘Don’t you watch the news? Read the papers?’

Thornton sat down again. ‘Racing Post, some days. And Johnny won’t have the news on. Says it’s all lies and government conspiracies. We just watch Sky Sports. Look, love, come on, you’re making us nervous.’

Annie sighed. ‘Mr Thornton, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we think Mimsy’s dead. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re asking questions.’

Thornton turned to her, slack-jawed. ‘Dead? What do you mean you think Mimsy’s dead?’

‘We believe she was murdered last Tuesday night. Have you seen her since then?’

‘No. No, I haven’t. But... murder? Our Mimsy? Who’d want to murder her? Johnny, will you turn that thing down?’

Johnny did something with the remote and the volume quietened a little.

‘That’s what we’d like to find out,’ Annie said. ‘We really need to talk to Sinead.’

‘But you can’t think she had anything to do with it.’

‘I’m not saying she did. But she’s Mimsy’s mother. She’ll have to be informed. And someone will have to come to Eastvale Infirmary and identify Mimsy. We’d prefer her mother to come if at all possible.’

‘Eastvale?’ Thornton lit a cigarette. His movements seemed to be in slow motion, mechanical. Annie realised he must be in shock, for all his apparent bravado. She didn’t think she could have broken the news any more gently. ‘Mr Thornton? Are you all right? Do you want me to call someone for you? Doctor? A neighbour?’

Thornton waved his cigarette. ‘Nay, nay. I’m all right, hen. Just give me a minute for it to sink in, like. Our Mimsy. Murdered. What happened? Who did it?’

‘Somebody gave her a beating. We don’t know who.’

Johnny still hadn’t reacted at all, and Annie doubted that he had even heard what she had said. She decided against trying to involve him for the time being. He was Mimsy’s uncle, and he was certainly weird, but there was no more reason to expect him to move out of his chair now than Thornton said he had in the last ten years. Johnny could wait.

‘When did you last see Mimsy, Mr Thornton?’ Annie pressed on.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Come on, Mr Thornton. Try a bit harder. Please.’

Thornton furrowed his brow. ‘Few days ago, I suppose,’ he said finally.

‘She does live here, doesn’t she?’

‘When it suits her. She comes and goes. You know what they’re like.’ He let his head rest in his hands for a moment and rubbed his whiskered face. ‘Sorry, hen. I’ll miss her. She was a breath of fresh air around here, you know, when she was home.’ Then he got to his feet, knocking the Carlsberg Special Brew tin off the arm of the chair as he did so. Beer spilled over the threadbare carpet. ‘I need something a bit stronger than that,’ he said, taking a bottle of Johnnie Walker out of the cupboard and pouring himself a large glass before he returned to his armchair and took a gulp. Annie noticed that his hand was shaking.

‘Technically, she’s your stepdaughter, Lenny?’

‘Technically, me and Sinead aren’t actually married.’

‘How long have you been living here together?’

‘Six years.’

‘Common law, then. As good as. How old was Mimsy?’

‘Fifteen. And her brother Albert’s eighteen. Christ. Albert. He’ll be gutted. They’re both Sinead’s by her first husband. Les Moffat.’ He nodded towards the window. ‘The two wee uns out there are mine and Sinead’s.’

‘How many children altogether?’

‘Just the four.’

‘Where is Albert?’

‘He said he was off to go clubbing with some mates in Manchester. That were last Thursday.’

‘Do you know who these mates are? An address?’

‘Just mates of his.’

‘Where’s Les Moffat these days?’

‘No idea. Down south, somewhere, I think.’

‘So she stopped out a lot, Mimsy?’

‘Aye. I suppose you could say that.’

‘Nights as well?’

‘It were all the same to her.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘Search me. She never said. Mates. And asking Mimsy anything she didn’t want to tell you was like banging your head against a brick wall.’

‘Did she have a boyfriend?’

‘Not as far as I know. She might have had. I honestly don’t know what she got up to.’

‘Didn’t you worry about her?’

‘No sense worrying, is there? Que sera, sera.’

‘What about friends? Who did she hang out with?’

‘Just her mates as far as I know. That’s what she said if you ever asked her owt.’ He tried to mimic a young girl’s voice. ‘ “I’ve been with my mates”, “I’m going out with my mates.” ’

‘Know any of their names?’

‘Nah. Just, you know, they’re local kids.’

‘From school?’

Thornton reached for his cigarettes. ‘I suppose so. Where else do kids meet other kids?’

Gerry seemed uncomfortable, and Annie remembered that she came from a nice clean comfortable middle-class home and went to a posh school. She wasn’t used to this rough and ready way of life, the smells, the untidiness, the laissez-faire attitudes, the lack of discipline, the poverty. Annie had grown up in a messy and poor artists’ commune and lost her mother at an early age, but her childhood had not been without love, care and comfort. This, she thought, looking at Lenny and Johnny, is what becomes of certain people when they feel disenfranchised, get put down and ignored all the time and come to feel there’s no useful way through life for them, that nobody cares and nothing’s going to change for the better. The most extreme do what Johnny was doing and sit catatonic in their chairs, day in, day out. For the rest, there are drugs, drink, violence, crime or just simple apathy broken up by the distraction of video games, sex and mobile phones. Life is something to be got through. Days are hurdles, weeks are rivers to cross, months lakes and years oceans. Annie wondered if life had been like that for Mimsy, too.

‘Do you know where any of Mimsy’s friends live?’ she asked, without much hope.

‘No. Just here and there, around the estate, you know.’

‘Is there somewhere they hang out, some place in particular?’

‘Probably at the shopping mall or down on the Strip,’ said Thornton.

‘The Strip?’

‘Used to be the old Wytherton Town Street. It’s got a few shops and cafes, couple of pubs, little parks, places to hang out. The name’s a joke, like. The Strip. Las Vegas. There’s a bookie’s, but that’s as close to a casino as you’ll get down there. But it’s changed a lot. Too many Pakis for my liking. It’s like they’ve taken over everything. You might find some of her mates there if they don’t mind too much who they hang out with. It doesn’t really come alive until after dark. In daytime you’ll most likely find them at the shopping mall, hanging around the fountain, or painting each other’s toenails in someone’s house.’

‘How far away is this Strip?’

‘Mile or so. There’s a bus goes from the next street over.’

Annie made a note. They could check out the shopping mall first, then come back later and see what they could find out on the Strip. In the meantime, their priority was to find Sinead Moffat. ‘So you’ve no idea where Mimsy’s mother is, Mr Thornton?’

Thornton drank some more whisky and took a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘You might as well know,’ he said. ‘You’d find out, anyway. Sinead’s a junkie. She goes off with her junkie friends and they spend all day on cloud fucking nine I don’t know where.’

‘Do you know their names?’

‘No. They never come here.’

‘You don’t share this life with her?’

‘No.’

Annie could see from his arms that he didn’t inject heroin, at any rate. ‘So Sinead is a heroin addict? That’s what you’re telling me?’

‘That’s right. Oh, she’s all official. Registered and all. And right now she’s on methadone and going for counselling at the treatment centre, so. For all the good it does.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Tried it all before, hasn’t she? She always goes back.’

‘But she shouldn’t be shooting up with the others at the moment, not if she’s on methadone?’

‘She shouldn’t be, no. When she’s clean, when she’s... oh, Christ, she can be the sweetest thing. She tries. My God, she tries. It just breaks your heart. I’m sorry. I really don’t know where she is. She went to the clinic for her dose. Then she was supposed to go for counselling. If she was feeling all right, she might have gone shopping in the town centre. Middlesbrough, like.’ Lenny Thornton had tears in his eyes. They had welled up so much that Annie was sure they would start to flow down his whiskery cheeks, but they didn’t; they just clung there stubbornly, moist and heavy, on the bottom rims of his eyelids.

Annie handed him a card. ‘I’m really sorry for your loss, Mr Thornton. You should be with your wife at a time like this. Will you try and get in touch with her and phone me when she comes back? And keep her here until I can get here?’

‘Aye, pet. I’ll try. This’ll do her head in.’

‘Did you know that Mimsy cut herself?’ Annie said, raising her arm and pointing. ‘Her wrist.’

‘Aye, that were a couple of years back. Nowt serious, like.’

Annie assumed he was speaking of the physical injuries, not the psychological problems behind them. She nodded and stood up. Gerry needed no bidding to follow suit. ‘Did Mimsy have her own room here?’ Annie asked.

‘That she did.’

‘Mind if we have a look? Just to see if there’s anything.’

‘Top of the stairs on the left,’ said Thornton.

Annie led the way upstairs and saw the door was half open. They both slipped on their latex gloves, and Gerry pushed on the door. The hinges creaked as it opened. The first thing Annie noticed was that Mimsy had been tidy for a teenager. Much more so than Annie herself had ever been. She didn’t know about Gerry. She probably sat all her dolls in a neat row on a bookshelf and arranged the books according to the Dewey decimal system. Or perhaps it was simply that Mimsy wasn’t here very often. The striped wallpaper was peeling up there, just as it was in the living room.

Mimsy Moffat didn’t have much to keep tidy. The bed, a narrow single, was made, and there were clothes in the laundry hamper. Annie had been expecting the usual teenage posters on the walls — One Direction, Justin Bieber — but the only one was a poster advertising Swan Lake showing a beautiful ballerina appearing to float in mid-air above the water. The small chest of drawers was filled with underwear, make-up, socks, tights and a few pieces of cheap jewellery — earrings, a heart pendant with no photos inside, a charm bracelet with only a tiny pair of shoes on it. There were also a few T-shirts, clean and neatly folded. In her bedside drawer were a hairbrush, a box of Kleenex, a packet of paracetamol and a box of tampons. Nothing out of the ordinary.

A small desk stood under the window, which looked out on the backyard and the other backyards across the alley. On it lay a flat oblong tin of Lakeland colouring pencils and an 8 x 11 WHSmith sketchbook. Lenny Thornton had said that Mimsy liked to draw. Annie rifled through the pages, stopping here and there to admire a composition. Some were sketches of the uninspiring view from the window, others clearly more subjects from the imagination: magical creatures, half-deer, half-woman, flitting through forests at night, a stormy sea with tall-masted wooden ships tossing in the waves, a far-off mountain peak beyond a barren, red and orange landscape under a grey and purple sky, very Lord of the Rings, with a halo of fire at the summit. There were also some copies of the Tenniel illustrations to the Alice books. The one thing they all had in common was that they were very good. Perhaps a bit primitive in technique, but lacking nothing that couldn’t be learned by someone with the basic talent in a few months. If Mimsy Moffat were the artist, she had been talented indeed. Annie put down the sketchbook and wandered over to the small bookcase.

There were few books, mostly Mills & Boon romances, Martina Cole and bulky collections of illustrated fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, along with children’s books like The Water Babies, Tales of Beatrix Potter, The Wind in the Willows and not surprisingly a reproduction of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass with the John Tenniel illustrations. The wardrobe held a couple of denim jackets, a winter coat with fake fur collar, various leggings, distressed shorts and jeans, some miniskirts and cheap print dresses, along with a few pairs of shoes, including sandals, no-name trainers and two pairs of court shoes. There was no mobile phone or computer. No stereo system, CDs, iPods or the like. No purse or handbag. No TV. In many ways, it was a spartan room, and Annie was hardly surprised Mimsy didn’t spend much time there. Though no doubt it was spartan exactly because she hadn’t spent much time there. But where had she spent her time, and what were the attractions there?

‘Gerry, would you go ask Mr Thornton for a bin bag and permission to take the contents of Mimsy’s laundry basket? Who knows, we might find something in her pockets, or stains with DNA to match the samples Jazz took from her body.’

Gerry went out and after a few moments came back with a black bin bag. ‘He says he doesn’t care what we take,’ she told Annie. ‘The level in that whisky bottle’s gone down a fair bit, too.’

‘People deal with bad news in their own way,’ said Annie. ‘Any word from Johnny?’

‘Nothing. I think there’s something seriously wrong with him.’

‘You’re probably right about that. Brain damage would be my guess.’ She glanced around the room again. ‘Anything else you think we should take?’

‘Maybe the hairbrush?’ said Gerry. ‘Just to make sure about DNA.’

‘Good point.’ Annie put the hairbrush in one of the smaller plastic bags she carried in her shoulder bag, then put Mimsy’s dirty laundry in the bin bag and labelled both.

Downstairs everything seemed much the same except, as Gerry had noted, the level in the whisky bottle. The football game was still on, fast approaching extra time, Johnny hadn’t moved, and Thornton was lighting another cigarette. ‘We’ll be off, now,’ Annie said. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing we can do for you before we leave, Mr Thornton?’

‘Nay, pet. Just leave me be. I’ll be all right. Johnny and me, we’ll be all right.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want us to call someone?’

‘I don’t know as I want to talk to anyone right now,’ said Thornton. ‘But thanks, hen. You’d best be on your way now, all right? Find out what happened to our Mimsy.’

‘You will give me a ring when Sinead comes back, won’t you? We’ll arrange to have her brought to Eastvale and back home again.’

‘I’ll ring,’ Thornton said. His voice sounded throaty. He turned just as they opened the door. ‘Would you mind sending the wee ones in as you leave?’ he said. ‘You never know what’s going to happen to them out there.’

It was the first thought he’d shown for his own children, Annie realised, taken aback by the request. Grief affects us all in different ways, she told herself, and who was she to judge Lenny Thornton? She knew next to nothing about his life. She shielded her eyes from the onslaught of sunlight and watched as the children actually obeyed her instructions and went inside. Maybe they thought there was a treat in store for them.

‘Come on, Gerry,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a little shopping trip.’

Excerpt from Linda Palmer’s Memoir