A Wreath for my Sister Read online

  ‘Three. October, she’s four, then there’s William, two. And lastly there’s a baby, Ryan. He’s only six months old.’ Christine looked even more upset. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll remember their mummy, will they?’

  How could she expect Joanna to have an answer to this? ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Christine ...’Joanna said tentatively, knowing she had to ask one of the most difficult questions of a friend. She had underestimated her.

  With a resigned air Christine stood up. ‘I know what you’re going to ask me,’ she said. ‘To identify her.’ She stopped and sniffed. ‘It’ll give me nightmares but I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it for her because I was her friend. And I’ll do it for them kids in there. And because the sooner you’re sure it was her the sooner you’ll nail the bastard what did it. I’ll identify her, provided she isn’t all cut about.’ She looked at Joanna. ‘She isn’t – is she?’

  ‘No. No – she’s quite neat and tidy. And it won’t take long. Don’t worry.’

  There were other points she had to clear up. ‘Who was her next of kin?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Christine looked confused. ‘She was married once, to a guy named Sam. Sam Finnigan. She left him because he beat her about.’ For some reason she refused to meet Joanna’s eyes. ‘He’s the father of two of her children – but not Ryan. She had Ryan just before Paul Agnew – that’s the boyfriend she lived with after Finnigan – after he kicked her out.’

  ‘So is Paul Agnew Ryan’s father?’

  Christine shook her head. ‘No, at least not that I could ever work out. She never really told me, but I think Ryan’s dad was married. That’s why Agnew gave her the boot. She was havin’ an affair.’

  ‘Who with?’

  Christine made a face. ‘Close as the grave she was about that one. She never told no one.’

  And that, it seemed, was that.

  ‘Where will I find Paul Agnew?’Joanna asked.

  ‘He’s got an oatcake shop in the High Street. But he lives in a flat in the town somewhere. I don’t know where.’

  ‘Where does Finnigan live?’

  ‘I don’t know where he lives now. Rents rooms somewhere, Sharon said. She told me that was why he didn’t see much of the kids. Nowhere for them to play.’ Christine made a face. ‘Just an excuse, if you ask me.’

  And her parents?’

  ‘Just a mum, I think. I never heard her talk about her dad. But Sharon and her mum don’t have a lot to do with each other. Not since Ryan was born. Funnily enough her mum quite liked Sam Finnigan. She was mad with Sharon for the business with the married man.’ She thought for a minute. ‘I think she was a nursing auxiliary somewhere or other. I’m not sure where.’

  On the way out they passed through the sitting room. Christine indicated a small girl in grubby blue dungarees holding the hand of a little boy in a red jersey and jeans.

  ‘These is Sharon’s,’ she said. ‘October and William. And that,’ she indicated a baby crawling towards the television set, ‘that’s Ryan.’

  Joanna looked curiously at Ryan. There was something different about the child. He was plumper, pinker, rounder – a handsome baby with bright eyes that despite his youth looked out to the world with a knowing intelligence which seemed lacking from either his sister or brother. Correction – his half-sister and half-brother.

  Still puzzling, she left Christine’s house and crossed the road to number forty-five.

  Mike had let himself in through the back door with the key he had found underneath the flowerpot. He’d drawn back the curtains and was standing in the middle of the cold room. He looked at her as she walked in.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for,’ he complained.

  The house smelt stale. Unlike Christine, Sharon had not been a scrupulous housekeeper. There was an unpleasant smell of cooking fat mingled with cigarette smoke, old perfume and hair lacquer. Toys were strewn around the room.

  On the coffee table, in the centre, was a collection of make-up, mascara, foundation cream, a palette of eye colour and a mirror in a pink, plastic frame.

  ‘Was she killed here?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Any sign of a man?’

  Mike shook his head. ‘Plenty of signs of kids,’ he said, ‘in the kitchen. All over the place. Nappies, toys, kids’ clothes. I haven’t been upstairs yet.’

  Joanna wandered through to the kitchen. It was untidy – a sinkful of washing up, an opened can of baked beans, a half-eaten loaf of white bread, its wrapper torn apart.

  They walked upstairs and found the children’s bedroom, strewn with toys, bunks with gaudy, bright quilt covers. And in the other bedroom was a double bed and a cot. So Ryan slept in his mother’s room. And on his cot was an expensive satin and lace duvet. Not the cheap bedding of the other two. Joanna stared at the cot and again she was puzzled.

  She crossed the room and opened the wardrobe. It was full of clothes, all for a slightly built woman.

  Back in the sitting room Mike was looking at a newspaper marked with red pen.

  ‘Jo, look at this.’

  It was the local evening paper, an edition almost three weeks old. Ringed in red felt-tipped pen was the shape of a love heart.

  Woman In Red looking for romance and sparkle.

  Wants a really good time with Prince Charming.

  Please apply BOX 397.

  Joanna read it three times before speaking, then she met Mike’s eyes. ‘This looks like it, then,’ she said. ‘According to Christine, she had a date with Prince Charming last night.’

  Mike put the paper down. ‘It was in here,’ he said.

  The shoe box had once held a pair of high-heeled black shoes – size 5 – according to the panel on the side. Now it contained a bundle of letters — most of them addressed in florid handwriting to Box 397. All of them had been opened.

  ‘Bring the box with you, Mike,’ she said, ‘and get the SOCOs to comb through the house. Then ring the station and get the Social Services round to Christine Rattle’s. We’d better go straight to the Quiet Woman. It seems they’ve found Sharon Priest’s car.’

  Chapter Five

  The Quiet Woman was living up to its name that afternoon. It was a small pub on the edge of the town with bowed windows which looked out on to the street. They found its car park at the back.

  The car was neatly parked and gift wrapped with police ribbon.

  Sergeant Barraclough walked towards her. ‘Inspector,’ he said. ‘We haven’t touched it except to try the handles.’

  ‘They were locked?’

  He nodded. ‘It looks to me like she parked it here, locked it and went for a drink.’

  She nodded at him. ‘But with whom?’ she asked. ‘That’s the question.’

  Barraclough glanced back at the battered Fiesta. ‘The guy that killed her,’ he said. ‘Went for a nice drinky, followed by sex in the car. Then murder.’

  She peered through the windows. ‘Not in this car.’

  ‘Makes most dates seem kind of tame, doesn’t it?’ There was no answer to that.

  Joanna glanced back at the pub. ‘Have you spoken to them?’

  ‘Not much,’ Barraclough said. ‘Just mentioned it had connections with a major incident. I thought I’d leave it to you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Joanna looked curiously at the car, peered in through the window. On the passenger side lay a thick, pink anorak, neatly folded. It looked designed to keep snow out.

  Mike frowned at it. ‘On such a cold night,’ he said, ‘why leave the coat in the car? Her dress was a skimpy thing. Bare shoulders. It wouldn’t have kept her warm. She’d have got cold even walking from the car to the pub.’

  ‘It’s easy to see you don’t understand women!’ she said, looking pityingly at Mike. ‘Pink anorak over your best red dress?’

  He frowned at her.

  ‘The two colours clash.’

  He laughed. ‘Mind you, Joanna,’ he said, ‘if it was the cha
p from the ad that might have been the way he knew it was her. The red dress.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s possible. But from what Christine Rattle told me, he’d have no trouble recognizing her because he already knew her. Mike,’ she said, ‘when we get back to the station I want you to stick a pair of gloves on and study his letters. If there’s anything there that gives us the slightest hint who our Prince Charming is I want to know about it.’

  She spoke to Barraclough then. ‘OK.’ She nodded. ‘Get the car on a low-loader and down to the police pound and we’ll let the forensics boys have a look at it.’

  But as she walked around to the front of the pub she said to Mike, ‘I don’t think we’ll get much from it, if anything. I’m convinced she locked the car and went into the pub. And that was the last contact she had with the vehicle.’

  The black painted front door was firmly closed. Mike picked up the knocker and dropped it loudly. They stood back and waited.

  A girl opened it just a fraction. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Police,’ Mike said, holding up his ID card. ‘We want to ask some questions in connection with a major incident.’

  The girl’s eyes opened wide. ‘What major incident?’

  ‘Can we come in, love?’

  The girl nodded and stood back.

  The pub was dark inside and pungent with the stink of stale tobacco and spilt beer. They were obviously still cleaning up. Glasses lined the bar and the girl was holding a red and white check tea-towel.

  ‘Any chance I could speak to the landlady?’

  ‘She ain’t here. What’s it about?’

  ‘The car that was found in your car park.’ Joanna felt this was a decent starting point.

  The girl blinked. ‘What’s the problem?’ She gave them a world-weary glance. ‘Another one stolen?’

  Joanna shook her head and the girl picked up a glass from the sink and began polishing it. ‘What, then?’

  She sounded almost bored by the whole business.

  ‘The woman who drove it here.’

  ‘Look.’ The girl frowned. ‘I don’t know who drove it here. I don’t see people parking their cars. They put them round the back or across the road. Jack the bloody Ripper could have drove it ’ere for all I know.’

  ‘It was a young woman who drove it here,’ Joanna said steadily, ‘on Tuesday night.’ She looked at the barmaid. ‘Perhaps you weren’t on duty that night?’

  The girl nodded. ‘I was here. What did she look like?’

  ‘Slim, in a dark red dress. Auburn shoulder-length hair.’ She stopped. ‘I think you might remember her. It was snowing but she wasn’t wearing a coat. Her shoulders were bare.’

  The girl’s curiosity was finally aroused. ‘I do remember her. She was sitting over there.’ She indicated the plush seat nearest the door. ‘She was here for ages, waiting for her boyfriend. She kept staring out of the window.’ She paused. ‘I reckoned it must be someone she’d fancied a long time.’

  ‘Why?’ Mike’s question was brusque and the barmaid looked annoyed.

  ‘Because she went to the toilets twice to do her hair and put more lipstick on.’ She giggled. ‘And she looked nervous. Her hand was shaking holding her glass.’

  She stopped suddenly, as though her memory had been pricked. She moved her gaze from Joanna to Mike. ‘What’s happened to her?’ she asked.

  ‘Did the bloke come in the end?’ It was Mike, still sounding impatient.

  ‘Sort of,’ the barmaid said reluctantly. ‘At least I suppose it was the bloke she’d been waiting for.’ She stared out of the window. ‘Pulls up outside – noisy as hell – flashes his lights straight into the lounge. She stands up, walks to the door. Bloke standing there. She says something to him, and off they go.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I dunno.’ The barmaid shrugged her shoulders. ‘He was wearing an anorak, hood up. I didn’t think there was anything funny about it,’ she said defensively. ‘It was a bloody freezing night. I couldn’t see his face. I was busy. And I didn’t really look. He was slim.’ She glanced at Mike. ‘Slimmer than you. Quite tall.’ Again she looked at Mike. ‘Your sort of height. She went off with him. That’s all I know.’ She looked helplessly at Joanna. ‘Well, I didn’t know, did I? I didn’t know something was going on.’ She screwed her eyes up. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘what was goin’ on?’

  When neither of them replied she said more aggressively, ‘Come on, I’ll read it all in the evenin’ paper.’

  ‘The girl’s been found dead,’ Joanna said reluctantly. ‘The body on the moors. It was her.’

  The barmaid looked disbelievingly from one to the other. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘She just looked ordinary ... normal.’

  ‘She didn’t know she was about to be killed,’ Mike said sarcastically. ‘She thought she was on a date.’

  The girl blinked. ‘I don’t think there was anything I could have done.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Joanna was getting too familiar with this defensive attitude to crime. ‘Of course you didn’t know. But just think carefully. Was there anything – anything at all – that might help us identify this man? Had you ever seen him before?’

  The girl stopped, then shook her head slowly. ‘He wasn’t one of our regulars. At least I don’t think he was.’ Her face filled with uncomfortable fascination. ‘What exactly happened to her?’

  ‘We can’t release details,’ Joanna said.

  ‘I never knew anyone who got murdered,’ she said in awe. ‘A suicide, and a friend of my brother’s who got paralyzed in a car accident. But murder ...’

  Mike glanced at Joanna and she knew what he was thinking. What a ghoul.

  She looked at the girl. ‘Do you think you might be able to get together with the other people serving behind the bar that night and draw a plan of who was here – where they sat, what time they arrived, what time they left?’

  The barmaid’s eyes were round. ‘I think so.’ She nodded. ‘Between us we might manage.’

  ‘Good.’ Joanna felt pleased. So far so good. Then she turned to the barmaid again. ‘And don’t forget to fill in even people who dropped in for one drink earlier and then left. They might have seen her sitting alone and come back later for her.’

  She stopped. ‘How many people were serving behind the bar that night?’

  ‘Two of us girls,’ the barmaid said, ‘and Pablo. He owns the place. He’s Spanish.’ The girl swallowed. ‘Can I ask,’ she said timidly, ‘what time was she killed?’

  ‘Some time during the evening,’ Joanna said, ‘before the snow came down.’

  ‘Can I ask something else?’

  The barmaid was beginning to look frightened. ‘Do you think it might have been someone who drinks here regularly?’

  Joanna met her eyes. ‘We don’t know,’ she said. ‘We just don’t know.’

  ‘Mike,’ she said when they were outside, ‘we’ll have to get the boys to take statements from everyone drinking at the Quiet Woman on Tuesday night plus the three staff.’ She paused. ‘I know at the moment we’re assuming the man she left the pub with – the man she had a date with – was the killer. But it’s a dangerous assumption. It’s not necessarily true. She could have had a perfectly legitimate date, then been killed by someone else that night.’

  Mike’s eyes narrowed. ‘But her car was still there,’ he said.

  ‘I know that,’ she said, irritated. ‘I’m just saying. We must take this investigation one small step at a time.’

  Mike grunted.

  ‘So let’s start the ball rolling. Set up an incident room and let’s get those statements ready to read through. If we can get a decent description of the man from someone at the Quiet Woman that night we have a head start. Maybe someone was outside the pub at the time when his car pulled up. Or it’s possible someone was entering the pub at the same time he did.’

  ‘It was a very cold night,’ Mike reminded her. ‘I don’t suppose people were hanging aroun
d.’

  ‘No, but there’s always a chance,’ Joanna said. ‘We’ve had some nice surprises before. And some lucky breaks. So it’s back to leg work and statements, Mike.’

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘My favourite hobby – getting statements from folk who keep their ears and eyes shut when there’s a crime around.’

  Joanna laughed. ‘Stop grumbling.’

  ‘Still.’ He brightened up. ‘We’ve got DNA from the semen.’

  She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Are you suggesting we take semen samples from every bloke around Leek?’ She met his eyes. ‘We don’t have the powers to do that. We have to find a suspect. Then we can move. Don’t be impatient,’ she warned.

  She started the engine and let out the clutch.

  He was silent for the first half of the journey, then suddenly he said, ‘If I’m going to be helping the boys collect statements all afternoon what are you going to be up to?’

  ‘The morgue,’ she said grimly. ‘I promised Christine I’d drive her down. Someone has to identify the body.’

  He looked at her curiously. ‘How do you know her so well? I wouldn’t have thought she moved in the same circles as you and that solicitor chap.’

  ‘God, Mike,’ she spluttered. ‘Don’t be such a snob. She’s a very nice person.’

  He ignored the comment.

  ‘She cleans the cottage for me,’ she said. ‘And a bloody good job she makes of it too. She’s also my friend.’

  Mike nodded, and the action infuriated her even more.

  ‘Then I’ll have to talk to the Coroner,’ she continued, ‘and I thought I’d better see what the forensic psychologist has to offer.’

  ‘You still believe in all that psychology mumbo jumbo?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  Mike shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re entitled to your own opinions, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes – I am.’ She smiled. ‘However, I shall still rely on pure science and traditional police methods. I’ll finish the day with my old friend H.O.L.M.E.S.’

  He grinned. ‘Lucky you,’ he said. ‘Never was much into computers myself. Anyway, this is a local crime, surely. Someone who dated a local girl and killed her.’