Текст книги "Without a Trace"

Автор книги: Lesley Pearse

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CHAPTER TWO

Molly fled up the rutted lane to the road. It was hard going through the mud, so she climbed up on to the bank and forced her way through the bushes. On reaching the top, she jumped on her bicycle and freewheeled through the rain all the way down to the village, barely able to see for tears.

The high street was deserted but she could hear children in the village hall singing ‘The Farmer’s in His Den’. When she reached the police station she flung her bike down outside and ran in.

PC George Walsh was on duty behind the counter.

‘What on earth?’ he exclaimed when he saw her. She was soaked through, wild-haired and crying. He lifted the counter top and came through to her, holding out his arms. ‘Has someone attacked you, Molly?’

They had been at school together from the age of five, and George now belonged to the same drama group she did. She liked him a great deal, not just because he was nice-looking, with grey eyes and curly brown hair, but because he could always made her laugh, and he was sensitive.

‘I’ve just found Cassie March dead,’ she blurted out. ‘And Petal is missing! I can’t find her.’

George caught hold of her elbows and moved her away from him so he could see her face. His eyes were wide with shock. ‘Cassandra? Dead? Where did you find her?’

Molly sobbed out what she’d seen, and George put his arms back around her, holding her to his shoulder. ‘I’ll have to report this to the sergeant, and he’ll have to get on to the DI. We’re a few men down, with the Coronation and all. I’ll be a few minutes. Will you be all right on your own for a bit?’

‘Yes, of course. Thank goodness it was you on duty and not someone I don’t know,’ she said, trying to brush away her tears. ‘You will find Petal? She’s only six.’

‘As soon as I’ve reported it, a search will be started. I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ he said, went back behind the counter and disappeared through a door.

It occurred to Molly as she sat on the bench waiting that most girls of her age and in these circumstances would run across the road to their parents for comfort and support.

Heywoods grocery shop was right opposite the police station, and from the sitting room above the shop her parents might have seen her running in here, or spotted her bicycle outside. But, even if they had seen, they wouldn’t come over. Her mother would want to, but her father would sniff and say, ‘If she’s in trouble, she can get herself out of it.’

There would be precious little sympathy from him when he heard that she’d found Cassie dead. He disapproved of Cassie on every level. Being an unmarried mother with a mixed race child was, in his bigoted view, beyond the pale, and because Cassie didn’t creep around hanging her head, that was evidence she was no good. He often called her ‘that red-headed whore’, angering Molly, because that was such an ugly and untrue label. In fact, he was very likely to relish Cassie’s death and he wouldn’t be concerned about Petal being missing either. Molly often thought that whatever part of the brain it was which gave people compassion and empathy was missing in him. Her mother didn’t share her husband’s views, but she was afraid of him and wouldn’t dare do or say anything he disapproved of.

Molly put her elbows on her knees, held her head in her hands and began to cry again, this time because of the situation with her father. He was a tyrant, and he sucked all the joy out of everything, growing nastier with each passing year. Yet she couldn’t leave because of her mother.

With hindsight, she should’ve left home at sixteen, as her sister, Emily, did, even if that meant moving into a girls’ hostel for a year or two, or getting a live-in job like a mother’s help. But what she had planned after that was to go to drama or art school when she was eighteen, and she stupidly thought she could save some money by living at home and working in the shop.

As it turned out, her father had never paid her a proper wage. All she got was the odd half-crown as pocket money, and she had to beg for money for a new dress or shoes. He poured scorn on her plan of drama school and insisted it was her duty to help in the shop and look after her mother.

Nothing could’ve been less appealing to Molly than a life of slicing bacon and stacking shelves, but she loved her mother dearly. She was a timid, gentle person and she suffered from her nerves, often having such bad attacks that she could barely breathe and had to go to bed until it passed. She needed calm, love and encouragement to bring her out of it, and she certainly wouldn’t get that from her husband.

Emily was far braver than Molly was; she’d gone after their father had given her a good hiding for seeing a boy he considered a lout. He broke two of her ribs and one of her front teeth, and when she left she vowed she’d never return. She had been true to her word. There was the occasional letter, which their father tore up if he saw it. In one, which got through unseen by her father, Emily had written that she’d got a job as a secretary for a solicitor. Both Molly and her mother had written back immediately, explaining this was the first letter they’d received in months, and begging Emily to let them have a telephone number so they could ring her, or for her to ring them after eight in the evening, when her father would be at the pub. But she never did give them a number or ring them, and the chilly tone of her subsequent rare, brief letters implied she had decided that her mother and sister were as bad as her father, so it was difficult for Molly and her mother to know what to do. In the last couple of years there had been no further letters; they didn’t even know if she still lived at the same address.

Now, at twenty-five, Molly virtually ran the shop. Jack Heywood sat in his office out the back all day and did crosswords and smoked his pipe, and Molly never got a word of praise from him for all she did, only sarcasm and abuse.

It was a terrible thing to hate and fear her own father, but she did. He was a bully, a bigot and a complete hypocrite. She couldn’t help but wish he would have a heart attack and die. Perhaps then her mother could learn to laugh again instead of trembling with anxiety every time he had that scornful expression on his face.

George came back through the door behind the desk. ‘Sergeant Bailey has gone up there now. I expect you heard him drive off. I’ve spoken to the guvnor on the phone, and he’ll be joining Sarge up at Stone Cottage. He asked that I take a statement from you, and said he’ll talk to you when he gets back.’

George held up the flap in the counter for her, then led the way through into the back of the police station.

‘I’m going to get you that cup of tea first,’ he said. ‘You look as white as a sheet, so just sit there while I get it.’

Molly sank down gratefully on to the chair he pointed out. She felt very shaky and faint.

George didn’t take long, and came back with tea on a tray. ‘Luckily, Sarge had put the kettle on, and his wife brought us in some rock cakes. Come on. We’ll go to the interview room.’

The room he took her into had grubby green walls and stank of stale cigarette smoke. George noticed her wince as he put the tea tray down, and he turned to open the window.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘You and I must be the only people in the village who don’t smoke, and it comes hard when you have to live with the pong.’

‘I don’t normally find it so bad, but I feel a bit sick after finding Cassie.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ he said, indicating she was to sit down opposite him at the table. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock, so have your tea and, when you feel up to it, we’ll start on your statement.’

The tea and George’s gentle manner did help to calm her a little. If she’d had to talk to any of the other officers she wouldn’t be able to cope.

‘What a wash-out for the Coronation,’ he said to distract her. ‘As it turned out, perhaps it was as well we didn’t get the coach to London to see it.’

Even through her distress, Molly remembered that one of the reasons she hadn’t minded too much about not being allowed to go to London was because George had told her he’d be on duty that day. He’d even made a little joke about his disappointment at not being able to sit next to her on the coach. For several days afterwards she kept thinking about it and wondering how she could engineer being somewhere alone with him. But she hadn’t intended it to be here in the police station like this.

‘Well, Molly,’ he said, once he thought she was ready. ‘We’ll start first with your full name, age and occupation, which of course I already know, but I need you to tell me officially, then tell me why you went to Stone Cottage.’

Molly told him, and he wrote it down.

‘And what time would you say it was when you found Cassie?’ he asked.

‘Well, the children’s tea party began at three … I suppose it was quarter past when I began to worry that Petal wasn’t there. I spoke about it to Brenda Percy and left soon after. It must have taken me at least twenty-five minutes to get to Stone Cottage, so it was probably ten to four when I found Cassie.’

‘Did you touch anything?’

‘No. Well, apart from the door and maybe the rail on the stairs. I went up there to look for Petal, and in the privy and woodshed.’

‘What made you think Cassie was dead?’

Tears started up again in Molly’s eyes. ‘There was so much blood and her eyes were open. But I felt for her pulse, too, and couldn’t find it.’

‘So, after you’d looked for Petal, you left and came back to report it at the police station?’

Molly nodded and wiped her eyes.

‘Did you see anyone, either on the way up there or on the way back?’

‘No. No one at all,’ she said.

‘When did you last see Cassie alive?’ he asked. ‘Was it today?’

‘No.’ Molly shook her head. ‘It was yesterday afternoon after school. She came into the shop for some tea and bacon. Petal was really excited about the party.’

‘Excited’ didn’t really cover the mood Petal was in. She had rushed into the shop, dark eyes blazing with excitement, flung her arms around Molly’s waist and gabbled something so fast Molly couldn’t follow what she was saying.

‘Say it slower, sweetie,’ she said, holding Petal’s arms and pushing her a little away from her.

She was wearing her blue-and-white checked school uniform dress. Her curly hair was like a halo round her sweet face and her teeth were brilliant white against her brown skin.

‘Mummy’s made me a Britannia costume,’ she said, still gabbling, but a little clearer now. ‘She made the dress from an old sheet, it’s kind of like a Roman toga. But the helmet is the best, all silver and gleaming. I think I’m going to win the prize for best costume.’

Molly hugged Petal. She adored the little girl. ‘Now, don’t go banking on it, will you?’ she warned her. ‘Some of the other mummies can make good costumes, too, and the vicar is the judge and he can be a bit old-fashioned.’

‘She’s been like this for days,’ Cassie said, grinning with pride at her pretty daughter. ‘Look, Molly, I’m no cake maker, so let me pay for four bottles of orange squash as my contribution to the party.’

‘Are you sure you can afford it?’ Molly asked, because she knew Cassie had very little money to live on.

‘Of course! I don’t want those Holier than Thous pointing out I’m mean, as well as being “no better than I should be”.’

The way she laughed as she said this proved that, whatever people said, it was water off a duck’s back to her. ‘I’m going to doll myself up and flirt with any man who so much as glances at me,’ she went on. ‘That should give everyone something to talk about after I’ve taken Petal home.’

Molly admired Cassie so much for her attitude. She wished she could be so daring.

Now, remembering that last brief conversation she’d had with her friend, she wished she’d told her what she thought.

‘I took the money for the orange squash and said I’d take it to the hall instead of her carrying it home and bringing it back today,’ Molly told George. ‘The last thing I said to her was to remind her that the party started at three, and I said that maybe we could have a bit of a chat after it.’

George nodded. ‘Do you know of anyone Cassie might have visited today? A friend, relative? Maybe she left Petal with them.’

‘Cassie doesn’t have any relatives here, and she wouldn’t have left Petal with a friend, not when there was a party in the village.’ Molly paused, looking hard at George. ‘Cassie was killed, wasn’t she? I mean, it wasn’t just an accident.’

‘I can’t possibly say from just what you’ve told me,’ he said, looking at her with rather mournful eyes. ‘That’s for the investigating officers to decide, and the coroner, too. Now, to save time later, what can you tell me about Cassie’s friends? Male and female.’

‘You must know that she didn’t have any real friends in the village aside from me,’ Molly said reprovingly. ‘People were mean to her. They said nasty things because she was on her own with Petal, and because Petal wasn’t white.’

‘I am aware of that.’ He sighed. ‘Village people tend to be very narrow-minded. But do you know if anyone was particularly nasty to her? Threatened her? Called at Stone Cottage uninvited? Someone that bothered her?’

‘She often said she’d grown so used to getting the cold shoulder on the bus or outside the school that she barely noticed it any more. But I think she would’ve told me if anyone was doing something more than that.’

‘You were very close friends?’ he asked.

Molly frowned, not sure how to explain how it was. ‘Cassie wasn’t really one for closeness. I know she liked me, and was glad I wasn’t mean like everyone else, but I still couldn’t have dropped in to see her any old time I fancied. She kind of held back, if you know what I mean.’

George half smiled. ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘I ran into her recently and I found her even more guarded than most people are when talking to a policeman. It was only when I said you and I were at school together that she warmed up. It was plain enough to me she was fond of you. What do you know about her family?’

‘That wasn’t a subject she encouraged,’ Molly said. ‘I kind of got the impression she’d brought herself up because her mother wasn’t up to much. I used to think that her father might be a bit like mine, but I was wrong about that because just recently she mentioned he’d been killed in the war.’

‘Where was her childhood home?’

Molly shrugged and pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. It must seem very odd that we were good friends yet I don’t know all that background stuff about her, but she talked about here-and-now stuff, like the past wasn’t important. But the reason I got the impression her mother wasn’t up to much was because she once said she wanted Petal to have the stability in her life that she’d never had. And Cassie did give her that. She was a great mother and home-maker. That cottage was awful when she moved in, but she made it nice.’

‘So when was the last time before today that you went to Stone Cottage? And tell me about her men friends.’ George asked.

Molly didn’t want to repeat anything Cassie had told her about the men in her life, but she knew she had to, in case one of them was responsible for her death.

‘The last time I went there was last Saturday,’ she said. ‘I’d been delivering an order to the Middletons up Platt’s Hill, I dropped in to see her afterwards.’

She paused, thinking about how everything had looked and seemed that day.

It was around eleven in the morning, very warm and sunny, and as she bumped down the track to Stone Cottage she thought how picturesque it looked. The ivy dappled the mellow golden stone walls, and the pink roses around the porch looked beautiful.

Petal was playing outside with a doll, wearing the pair of faded red shorts she always wore when it wasn’t a school day. She was small for a six-year-old, but well rounded, which made liars of those who claimed her mother half starved her. Her light-brown skin had a sheen to it, and her features were small and neat, except for her dark eyes, which were huge and soulful. Molly had only seen about three or four black people in her life, and then only in passing in Bristol, but she knew their hair was usually wiry, with tight curls. Petal’s wasn’t like that. It was curly but it felt silky, easy to put a comb through, but Cassie normally plaited it in neat little braids. That morning it was loose and hadn’t been brushed, as it stood up like a dark fuzz around Petal’s face. She had one front tooth missing, which gave her bright, welcoming smile a lop-sided look.

She shouted with delight to see Molly and ran towards her. Molly got off her bike, hugged the child and then lifted her on to the saddle and wheeled her over to the cottage.

‘I like Saturday best of all ’cos I don’t have to go to school,’ Petal said. ‘And it’s the best Saturday because you’ve come.’

Cassie must have heard Petal speaking, because she came out of the cottage. She was wearing a loose, flowery smock and had bare legs and feet. She often wore this dress while doing her chores. It looked like a maternity dress, but Cassie said it was comfortable and cool.

‘Great to see you!’ She beamed. ‘Petal said just a little while ago she hoped you would come to see us today. Would you like some ginger beer? It’s home-made, and good.’

‘Go on, then,’ Molly replied, and lifted Petal down, laid her bike on the ground and sat on an old bench.

Cassie disappeared into the cottage, and Petal came and perched herself on Molly’s lap, leaning into her shoulder. ‘You don’t come here enough,’ the child said.

‘I can’t. I have to work in the shop and look after my mum,’ Molly explained.

‘Yes, I know. Mummy said everyone puts on you. I don’t know what that means really, but I think it means you are a nice person, and I wish you could come here more.’

Molly chuckled, because Petal was such an old-fashioned little thing. They had a brief conversation about school and reading. Petal could read very well; it seemed Cassie had begun teaching her before she went to school. Then Cassie came back with the ginger beer and she began to tell Molly how she made it, a long, quite involved process using yeast and sugar.

Molly had become aware during their friendship that this was one of Cassie’s tricks, to talk about something random and complicated rather than anything personal. It usually meant she had a problem.

It had been a surprise to Molly that Cassie was a real home-maker. The cottage might not have any modern conveniences, but she’d made it homely with jumble-sale finds and things that had been given to her. An old wardrobe had been transformed by Cassie painting it white and stencilling flowers all over it. The chairs around the scrubbed wood table were all painted primary colours, there was a colourful old blanket over the shabby sofa, bright cushions, and the walls were covered in pictures she and Petal had painted.

Outside, she’d fixed a checked table cloth up like a sun shelter over the old table and chairs. There was even a vase of wild flowers on the table, and cushions on the chairs. She made her own bread, wonderful soups with vegetables she grew, and during the winter there was always a pot of rich, tasty stew simmering on the fire.

‘Right, out with it,’ Molly said. ‘What’s the matter? You only tell me long, boring things like how to make ginger beer when you’ve got something on your mind.’

Cassie sighed. ‘Oh, it’s nothing really, just that bastard Gerry I’ve told you about. He got a bit nasty with me yesterday. He thinks I’m seeing someone else.’

‘Are you?’ Molly asked.

‘Yes, of course, I’ve told you before I like different men for different things. Gerry is good in bed, but he’s a mean bastard and no fun. Brian is boring, but he’s kind and lovely with Petal. Mike is really good fun, generous, too, but he’s as unpredictable as the weather and I never know when he’ll turn up.’

‘Did you admit to Gerry that you were seeing other men?’

‘Yes, no names, of course, and I said they are just mates, not lovers. But Gerry went mad, saying I was a tart, and a whole lot more, which I won’t go into.’

‘Did Petal hear all this?’

‘No, at least I don’t think so. We were outside. She had gone to bed and was asleep before he arrived. She was still asleep when he left.’

‘How did you leave it with him?’ Molly asked.

Cassie shrugged. ‘Told him he had no right to tell me who I could or couldn’t see, and if he didn’t like the way I was he could sling his hook. Or words to that effect. He took a step towards me like he was going to hit me, but I picked up a bottle to let him know he’d have a fight on his hands. He left then.’

Cassie dropped the subject and began to talk about the vegetables she was growing, and Molly left soon afterwards to get back to the shop.

She realized she had to tell George about this, but she didn’t know how to. Cassie was the only person she’d ever met who talked about sex openly; other girls either didn’t mention it at all or used prim little euphemisms. Molly knew that if she repeated what Cassie had told her word for word, George and the other policemen would think her friend was a common tart, and she couldn’t bear the thought of them sniggering about her and making crude remarks.

‘I only stayed for about half an hour with them,’ she said carefully, trying to give herself time to think of a way to tell George what she knew. But just as she was preparing herself, the door opened and Sergeant Bailey came in. He was a burly man in his fifties and he’d been at Sawbridge police station for as long as Molly could remember.

‘How are you bearing up, Molly?’ he said, crouching down by her chair, his big face soft with sympathy. ‘It must have been an awful shock to walk in on something so nasty. You were right, Miss March is dead, and I’m very sorry to have to tell you, but we think it was murder.’

‘No!’ Molly shrieked in horror. It was one thing thinking it, but quite another to have it confirmed. ‘Why would anyone want to kill her? And where is Petal? Has she been killed, too?’

‘There is nothing at the cottage to suggest Petal has been hurt. We made a quick search of the surroundings, but found no sign of her. I’ve called in some of my men and some reinforcements from Bristol to do a thorough search, but I doubt they will arrive today. As to your question about why would anyone want to kill Miss March, that’s what we need to find out. And you can help us with that by telling us all you know about her.’

‘But all your men should be searching for Petal now,’ she burst out. ‘She’s only six, she must be terrified; cold and wet, too. You can’t leave her out there till tomorrow.’

Sergeant Bailey and George exchanged glances. ‘Molly was telling me about the last time she spent some time with Miss March,’ George said. ‘But I could go up to Stone Cottage now and start searching if you like.’

The sergeant looked from George to Molly, then patted her on the shoulder. ‘Carry on talking to PC Walsh. I have to get in touch with CID at Bridewell in Bristol, and talk to people to see if anyone saw or heard anything unusual today. Couldn’t have picked a worse day for a serious crime – half the force are on leave and the rain is likely to wash away evidence. But we’ll try to get a search going today, I promise you.’

Molly still thought that finding a missing young child should be the priority, not questioning villagers. But she could hardly argue with him.

George touched her elbow as the sergeant left the room. ‘Before Sarge came in, I got the feeling there was something you wanted to tell me about Cassie,’ he said. ‘Am I right? Was it about a boyfriend?’

Molly was still a virgin and had every intention of staying that way until she got married, so she was crippled with embarrassment at having to tell George what Cassie had told her. But one of those men might be the murderer, so she had to spill it out.

Keeping her eyes downcast, she began to tell him what Cassie had said about the men in her life.

‘She said Gerry was “good in bed”, but mean,’ she managed to get out, not fully understanding what the first phrase meant.

From sixteen until she was eighteen she’d been courted by Raymond Weizer. They occasionally went to the pictures but mostly just went for walks. When he was called up for National Service, it fizzled out. And, as she had once confided in Cassie, there hadn’t even been any fizz to start with; they’d never done anything more than kiss. Her parents had approved of Raymond because his family were farmers and he would inherit the farm in due course. Raymond married Susan Sadler six months after he was demobbed and they now had three children. Since then Molly had been to the pictures and to the village dance lots of times with various young men, but kissing was still as far as she went and, with just one exception, none of the men had been exciting enough to make her wish she dared go further.

However, realizing that the men in Cassie’s life were vital to the investigation into her death, she had to tell George exactly what Cassie had told her, albeit blushing and stumbling over her words sometimes.

George looked a little embarrassed, too.

‘It was hard to tell you something like that, which was a confidence,’ she admitted when she’d finished. ‘Especially as, sometimes, I didn’t fully understand what she was telling me, and I didn’t like to ask her to explain.’

‘You did very well,’ he said, and she noticed he had a little dimple in his chin when he smiled. ‘I don’t suppose you know these men’s surnames, or where they live,’ he asked.

‘No, but they can’t live far away, not if they just turn up when they feel like it,’ Molly said. ‘Have you looked to see if Cassie had an address book? I’ve seen her in the phone box lots of times. She could’ve been phoning one of them.’

George gave her one of those ‘you don’t need to make suggestions to the police’ looks.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m being bossy.’

‘It’s okay. Better to be bossy than say nothing. Would you be able to tell us what Petal was wearing today?’

‘No. Yesterday she was wearing her blue checked school dress, but Cassie didn’t let her wear her school clothes at any other time. My guess is that she was wearing red shorts, but I could probably tell you better if you let me look in the bedroom. I could see what was missing.’

‘Has Cassandra ever said she was troubled by anyone?’ George asked. ‘Someone that turned up there, made a nuisance of themselves – maybe someone from her past?’

‘She never said – well, except about Gerry,’ Molly replied. ‘But she was tough, George! If someone was being a nuisance, she’d see them off. She wouldn’t just put up with it.’ She almost added, ‘Like I would’; after all, she’d put up with her father saying the most horrible things to her for years, and hitting her, too. Cassie had been very blunt about it, saying her father was a brute and her mother almost as bad for letting it happen, so Molly should walk out on the pair of them. ‘Did she tell you where she lived before she came to Sawbridge?’ George asked, breaking across her thoughts.

Molly pondered the question; it was something she’d always been curious about. ‘I can’t give you a straight answer because Cassie never told me, but I think she’d spent most of her life in or near London, because she would mention art galleries and theatres there in a kind of personal, knowledgeable way. I think she was in Bristol, too, for a short while before she came to Sawbridge. She mentioned Devon, Glastonbury, Wells and other places sometimes, but I got the impression she was wandering around the area looking for a permanent place to bring up Petal and, when she got to Sawbridge, she felt this was it. She once told me she’d dreamed of a home like Stone Cottage for years.’

All at once Molly felt exhausted, as if all the energy in her body had drained away. She didn’t want to talk any more and, anyway, she had nothing more to say.

‘Go on home after you’ve signed this,’ George said, as if he’d picked up on how she was feeling. ‘You look all in – not surprising after what you’ve been through – and I know you were up and about at seven o’clock this morning. I saw you carrying an armful of stuff to the village hall as I came on duty.’

‘I’ve got a feeling nothing is ever going to be the same after today,’ said Molly sadly as she got unsteadily to her feet. ‘Is that silly?’

PC Walsh caught hold of her two hands in his and looked down at her. ‘We’ve known each other a long time, Molly,’ he said. ‘Perhaps nothing will be the same again, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be worse than before. Sometimes it takes something bad for us to see where we want to go, and who with.’

Molly smiled weakly. She wanted to think he was expressing an interest in her but, after all that had happened, it wasn’t appropriate to think like that.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Molly,’ he said. ‘If you think of anything else that might be useful to the investigation, jot it down so you don’t forget.’