Without a Trace

  She’d had so many laughs and in-depth conversations here in this cottage. Through Cassie, she’d learned so much about the world outside this village – about people, books, art and music. So many evenings with Petal sitting on her lap reading to her, or playing board games. Cassie was, without doubt, the best friend Molly had ever had, but more than that, too: she was her teacher, confidante and soulmate.

  Then, all at once, it occurred to her that Petal wasn’t here.

  Where was she?

  Petal was a shy child, nervous of people until she got to know them, and Molly had never known her to stray far from her mother’s side. But, surely, if she’d seen her mother fall and all that blood spurting out, she would have run for help?

  ‘Petal!’ she called out. ‘It’s me, Auntie Molly. It’s okay, I’m here now, and you’ll be safe.’

  But when there was no reply, not even a little whimper of distress, a dreadful thought crossed Molly’s mind.

  Was Cassie attacked and Petal so terrified that she ran to hide?

  Molly forced herself to act, running up the narrow stairs to look in the bedroom. She was distraught, tears almost blinding her. Her whole being wanted to run away from this scene; she couldn’t deal with it.

  There was a double bed at one end of the room and a small single at the other. Both were neatly made, and Cassie’s new red-and-white dress was lying on the double bed ready for her to put on. But Petal wasn’t there. Molly looked under the bed, but there was nowhere else Petal could hide herself.

  She went back down the stairs and checked the child wasn’t hiding in the privy or the woodshed, calling loudly, even though her voice was croaking with emotion. But there was nothing, not a rustle of leaves or a crack of a twig, to break the quiet in the woods.

  Molly’s stomach heaved and she vomited again and again into some undergrowth. Nothing in her life so far had prepared her for something as bad as this and, somehow, the fact it had taken place on a day the whole country was celebrating their new queen being crowned made it far, far worse.

  ‘The police,’ she said aloud, and forced herself to straighten up, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. ‘No time to lose.’ Staggering, and with the heavy rain mingling with the tears streaming down her cheeks, she began to make her way back up the muddy track to her bike.

  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 fr
om 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.