A Little Death Page 6

  Hanson took the slip from him as he headed for the door, talking as he went.

  ‘If she’s still at that college she could be a useful source of information about staff, including Vickers, plus she’d be in the know about the boyfriend. Boyfriends, husbands – they always get my attention as potential persons of interest.’

  ‘Where are you off to now?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve got a meeting with Nuttall. He wants an initial progress report.’

  She was surprised. ‘We’ve hardly started. Is this an example of the managerial “light hand” he mentioned?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s a mushroom. The way we play it, we keep him in the dark about what we’re doing. People like Nuttall are all right so long as they’ve got nothing to think about and plenty of time to do it.’

  He was gone.

  She reached for the phone, dialled the number he’d given her and waited as the call rang out. A male voice answered, followed by a short wait. A female voice came into her ear. It sounded breathless.

  ‘Yes?’

  Getting confirmation that this was Jessica Simmonds, Hanson briefly outlined the reopening of the Williams investigation and her own involvement in it. There was a lengthy pause. Hanson was about to speak when Simmonds’ voice came again. Now it sounded apprehensive.

  ‘I thought I heard something on the news about a murder case being opened. I didn’t realise it was about Elizabeth.’

  ‘You and Elizabeth Williams were friends,’ said Hanson.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You and she spent a lot of time together?’

  ‘No. Not so much.’

  This wasn’t what Hanson had expected, given what Corrigan had told them of the friendship between the two young women and the fact that they’d shared a house. ‘Did you know Elizabeth’s boyfriend at the time, Chris Turner?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘We’re interested in learning about everyone who knew Elizabeth well at the time she disappeared.’

  ‘I can’t tell you anything about him. He was keen on her and she was keen on him. That’s all I know.’

  Hanson frowned. ‘Are you still at the college?’

  ‘I dropped out. I was working here part-time as a gym instructor and they offered me a full-time job. I took it. I was fed up of college.’

  Hanson held the phone against her chest. Either my earlier experience with my students was right on the money: everybody under twenty-five has had their mental energy drained by aliens – or you really don’t want to talk to me.

  ‘Where can I see you if I need to?’

  She got a reluctant response. ‘I’m here every weekday. Billesley Fitness Centre. It’s just off Broad Street.’

  Hanson recalled seeing the huge steel and glass building close to the Five Ways intersection. ‘You were on the same course as Elizabeth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had the same tutors?’

  ‘Yes.’

  In the ensuing silence Hanson thought of the few papers in the plastic bag given to Corrigan by Elizabeth’s aunt. ‘Did you sign up for an internship during your second year?’

  ‘That’s how I got this job. It started as an internship and like I said they offered me a permanent place.’ Hanson picked up loud music and shouted instructions. ‘Look, I have to go.’

  ‘When and where did you last see Elizabeth?’

  ‘On the Saturday of the weekend she disappeared. We’d arranged to go shopping that morning but she remembered she had a tutorial so we went later. I left her in Northfield and that was it.’

  ‘Do you recall anything else?’

  ‘She was going on about getting to the dry-cleaners before it closed.’

  Hanson absorbed the limited details. ‘What time did you separate?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Around half four, quarter to five. Sorry, I have to go.’

  Hanson replaced the phone, studying the verbatim words she’d written, as spoken by the alleged best friend of a murdered girl. She looked at the phone.

  ‘I’ll definitely be seeing you, Jess Simmonds. I’m interested in all the things you might have said to me but didn’t.’

  SEVEN

  Watts cut the call and looked at his watch. It was nearly midnight. There was nothing to do but wait.

  Turning from the low building still several metres away, he went back to his unlocked vehicle parked in shadow at the roadside. With minimal sound he climbed inside it and sat, glad of the warmth. So far this month it was all warm days and chilly nights. His eyes were on the pavilion visible through the hedge. Enough to see who left and who arrived. He’d watched somebody go inside fifteen minutes before. Somebody he knew by his walk. Problem was, he didn’t know if anyone was inside prior to that. He hadn’t seen anybody else arrive or leave but the light wasn’t good and the kind of people who came here wouldn’t advertise their presence. He gazed around at the dense trees then at the field, the events of the other night still fresh in his mind. He’d give it another fifteen minutes. The element of surprise would be on his side, plus a low risk of resistance.

  He sat well back in his seat, eyes fixed on the low building. Gut instinct had brought him back. That was something Hanson had no time for. With the doc, it was all about ‘data’, which he’d learnt since working with her included going over every word anybody said and comparing it with everything everybody else said. He understood. He did a bit of that himself. Alibis had to be checked and compared. Basic policing. Where he and the doc parted company was when she started throwing theory into the mix. With her it was all about personality and behaviour, theories and hypotheses and she didn’t let up until, according to her, ‘the shadow of a suspect has some clear edges’.

  She’d joined him and Corrigan in UCU a couple of years before. A bit rocky to start with, at least for him but all right now. More than all right. He knew the stresses of investigation and she felt them as much as he and Corrigan did. On top of it she had her job and other pressures. That ex of hers was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. It had to be tough for her but that’s how it was. She was good at what she did, the best as far as he was concerned and they needed her in UCU. His eyes roamed over the scene beyond his window.

  His thoughts went back to the quick exchange they’d had about the single life when he was at her house the other night. During the time he’d known her, she’d been on her own. It made no sense to him. She was still young. Young enough to be his daughter at a push. When she’d first arrived at headquarters some of the officers had made the odd comment to him, trying to find out if she was available. He’d told them nothing. He knew Corrigan was keen. Not that he’d said anything to Watts. Corrigan was the close-lipped type. But he’d picked up on it. He wasn’t so sure the doc had. If she had, she wasn’t letting on or doing anything to encourage it. For all that thinking and analysing and searching of details that she did, for all her degrees, her training and her experience, he sometimes got the idea she didn’t know herself all that well. His eyes were back on the pavilion. Gut instinct was what worked for him. Like now.

  He got out into dark chill, pushing the door almost closed. Nearby a fox’s bark spiralled into a high-pitched whine which faded away into the night. At the gap in the hedge he waited in the shadows, listening. Another few seconds’ pause and he moved in the direction of the faint sliver of light around the edges of the pavilion’s crooked door. No sound from within. No sounds from behind him either, worse luck. He knew the rule from his long-gone rookie days: ‘Do not enter a situation where you think you might be outnumbered. Wait for backup.’

  He wished he was home. If something didn’t happen in the next few seconds there was only one way to find out how many types were inside. He’d still have the elements of surprise and threat on his side and he’d get what he was after without wasting days tracking it down.

  Reaching the door he leant close to it. Two voices. One he recognised, one he didn’t. Both had the lazy, pot-headed delivery he’d
anticipated. He reached out, tested the door. It gave slightly. Picking up muted sounds from behind him he stepped back, raised one hefty leg and drove it at the door. It fell away, followed by hoarse shouts and scrabbling.

  He stepped inside, a lighted torch rolling towards him. He stopped it with his foot, his eyes on Endo-Tony. ‘How’s the weed trade, Endo?’

  Watts felt rather than saw the other man coming at him as Whittaker and another officer piled inside and brought the man to the floor, handcuffed him and hauled him to his feet. Watts raised tentative fingers to his forehead, jabbing a thumb at Endo.

  ‘Cuff this one as well.’

  He followed all four to the patrol car, Endo moving with his distinctive roll. If you got on the wrong side of somebody in Endo’s business, you got a knock on the door from somebody with a piece of two-by-four and a keen interest in your kneecaps.

  ‘Stick that one inside the car and stay with him. I want a word with Endo.’ He turned to him. ‘Yours, I think.’ He held up the two small plastic bags between thumb and index finger.

  ‘Give us a break, Mr Watts,’ said Endo, eyes looking anywhere but at him.

  ‘I’ll think about it if you’ve got something for me.’

  Endo’s eyes narrowed. ‘How’d you mean?’

  ‘You’re a regular here.’ He pointed at his face. ‘Don’t deny it. It could make you a very valuable witness.’

  Endo looked unhappy at that last word. ‘You’ve got me all wrong, Mr Watts. I’m one of the bottom-feeders in this game. I don’t do nothing heavy and I don’t know nothing.’

  ‘Course you don’t and right now I’m not interested in what you get up to. I want to know if you saw anything going on here a while back.’

  ‘Like what? When?’

  ‘I’m thinking of an incident a year ago this month.’

  ‘A year? You’re having a laugh—’

  ‘Shut up and listen. This involved somebody who brought something to this field and left it here.’

  Endo avoided his eye. ‘That don’t mean nothing to me.’ He gave Watts a calculating look. ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘Who knows? Depends on what you’ve got.’

  Endo licked his dry-looking lips. ‘It was sometime last summer.’

  ‘Day and time.’

  ‘Day? Get real,’ he said, adding quickly, ‘it was night-time. Late, like now. I didn’t see nothing, but I heard a voice, the odd noise. You get all sorts out here.’

  Watts ran his eyes over him. ‘Yeah. I know. What I’m talking about, even somebody like you with dope for brains would have gone and had a look to see what was happening.’

  ‘I never. Then it all went quiet.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I seen this figure walking away,’ said Endo.

  ‘Man? Woman? Young? Not?’

  ‘Ask me another.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Carrying anything?’

  ‘Too dark to see but it got into a car.’

  ‘What sort of car?’ demanded Watts.

  ‘I didn’t see it. I just heard it start up.’

  ‘Hear anything else?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Did you or didn’t you!’

  ‘No.’

  Watts stared down at Endo who squirmed. ‘What did this car sound like? Small? Bag of bolts? Smooth? Boy-racer?’

  ‘I’d say big. A serious motor.’

  Watts nodded at the pinched face. ‘Thanks for that, Endo.’ Clearing his throat he intoned, ‘Anthony Miles, I’m arresting you—’

  Endo’s head dropped back. ‘Oh, come on, Mr Watts. Leave it out. It’s just a bit of weed.’

  Watts watched as Endo was put into the squad car and driven away.

  ‘I don’t care about that. It’s the rest of the crap you push that I don’t like.’

  Watts examined his forehead in his rear-view mirror. There was little indication as yet of the glancing blow from the piece of wood Endo-Tony’s customer had wielded. He considered the snippets of information he’d gained. Somebody had come to that field in darkness. That somebody had left in a large vehicle. He recalled what Myers had said he’d heard around the same time. He shook his head. As far as he was concerned, Myers was either a suspect or a nutter. That was something else he and the doc weren’t on the same page about. And then there was Endo-Tony. About as trustworthy as a ferret with an ID card. Two potential witnesses with issues. But there was similarity in what each had said. It was better than nothing. Maybe.

  EIGHT

  Barely six steps inside UCU, Hanson stopped.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  Watts got busy with papers. ‘Don’t you start. I’ve already had the same question from the lads here and from Chong early this morning.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ she said, aware as were most at headquarters of his liking for the diminutive pathologist.

  His shoulder sagged and he rolled his eyes. ‘It’s like trying to have a conversation with Sherlock-bloody-Holmes. Her car’s in for a service so I gave her a lift this morning. Satisfied?’

  ‘Marginally.’

  She eyed the reddened area on his forehead as he walked past her on his way to the ‘refreshment centre’ in the corner. ‘You still haven’t told me what happened.’

  ‘It’s on the board. Put there by me.’

  She read it. ‘Good work. Except for the head. This Endo-Tony confirmed he heard somebody at the field, somebody with a large vehicle. Did he mention hearing a voice?’

  ‘He did but no details. He probably had what’s left of his mind on his “business interests” at the time so I’m not getting excited about anything he had to say.’

  She reached into her bag, drew out a small buff-coloured slip of paper and waved it as Corrigan came through the door.

  ‘I’ve also got something.’

  Corrigan sat next to her. ‘Like I’ve said, that is indisputable, Red.’

  She looked up at him. ‘It was in that bag of bits and pieces Elizabeth’s aunt gave you. A dry-cleaning receipt. I went to the shop in Northfield earlier. They told me that it was for a woman’s suit. I think Elizabeth had plans the weekend she disappeared.’

  Watts looked up at her. ‘How’d you work that out? Students wear all sorts of stuff at any old time: trousers, shorts, short dresses, long dresses. A cleaner’s ticket is no guarantee she wore it.’

  ‘I phoned Jess Simmonds. She told me that Elizabeth was insistent on collecting something from the dry-cleaners that Saturday afternoon. Now we know what it was. It tells me that she was motivated to spend what would have been a significant amount of money for a student to have it cleaned and she wanted it that day. Ergo: she was going somewhere special.’

  ‘Ergo, she was going out with her mates or she had a date,’ he said.

  Hanson looked doubtful. ‘The choice of a suit suggests that whatever she had planned, it was something she considered important, formal.’ She reached for the laptop and entered the information from the Simmonds phone call. Corrigan turned to her.

  ‘I’ve arranged to see Turner, the boyfriend, at midday. He’s still at the college. If you come you can check out the aunt’s impression of him and we’ll follow up her assumption that Elizabeth was seeing him later on the Sunday. He might know something about this outing you think she was planning.’

  Putting down the laptop she reached for her bag. ‘That fits with my day. My last student contact is at twelve.’

  ‘Wish I had a part-time job,’ said Watts.

  ‘I’ll see you at the college, Corrigan.’ She pointed at Watts. ‘Have you seen what’s happened to him?’

  Corrigan grinned. ‘Yep. I’ve also seen the guys he arrested. They don’t look half as cheerful.’

  They were inside the college’s light, airy student common room. Hanson’s attention was on Chris Turner, her eyes drifting over his face. At twenty-one it had lost the softness still evident in many students. Below the fair hair, beneath the smooth, light tan there was a good bone structure. Chris T
urner was handsome and from the way he smiled and held his head, he knew it. She looked at his clothes. Well-fitting, meticulous, probably expensive. The initial impression was of a man with a big investment in his physical appearance and possibly a family who indulged him. He was giving Corrigan an open, pleasant look.

  ‘The police asked me that after Elizabeth disappeared. The answer’s still the same: I last saw her on the Saturday morning.’

  ‘June twenty-second,’ said Corrigan.

  ‘If that was the Saturday, yes.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘I’d say it was about ten thirty or around then. She was heading onto the campus as I was coming out.’

  ‘Had you spoken with each other or spent time together prior to that?’ asked Hanson.

  He sent her a brief glance. ‘If you’re asking whether Elizabeth and I spent the night together, the answer is no.’

  She saw Corrigan’s jaw muscles ripple. ‘I also asked if you’d spoken with her prior to ten thirty,’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did Elizabeth say to you?’ asked Corrigan.

  Turner was looking bored now. ‘The police asked me that as well.’ Looking at the ceiling, he delivered his answer like a litany. ‘No, I didn’t. She was late. She had a tutorial. She said she’d ring me. She never rang and I never saw her again.’

  ‘Who was the tutorial with?’ she asked.

  He looked towards the wide windows. ‘I couldn’t say. Vickers was her main tutor but she had others.’

  ‘You didn’t ring her later?’

  He turned his gaze back on her. ‘No. She said she’d ring me. When she didn’t I left it.’

  ‘Had you and Elizabeth argued?’

  He looked surprised. ‘Not at all. We got on really well.’

  Hanson kept her eyes on him. ‘How long had you and Elizabeth been in a relationship?’

  ‘A few months.’

  She watched him get up, stroll to the window and look outside. ‘All of this will be in police files. The officers who came to see me took notes.’

  ‘We’ve seen them,’ said Corrigan. ‘This is a reinvestigation. Everything requires a second look.’