He pulled out a tissue nestled in the side of the armchair and wiped at his face. He saw Peterson glaring at him. He put the tissue down and brought his hands to his chest and slowly painfully used his claws to undo three of his shirt buttons, he splayed the shirt open where a beautiful silver crucifix lay against his burnt chest. Erika noticed he didn’t have any nipples.
‘I’ve found Jesus Christ. I have asked him and he has forgiven me. Do you believe in forgiveness, DI Peterson?’
‘I believe in it, but I think there are some things which shouldn’t be forgiven… My sister was raped by our local priest when she was six. He threatened to kill her if she said anything.’
‘The priesthood attracts the best and the worst. Did he repent?’
‘He died on his own terms, natural causes. My sister killed herself.’
Erika realised that Peterson coming was a bad idea. She hadn’t put two and two together and she was cursing her stupidity.
‘Peterson. We’re not here to talk about…’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Marksman his cold blue eyes staring out from underneath his mask of skin grafts. Peterson stood, his chair tipped back with a crash, and he had Marksman by the shirt collar before Erika could react. Marksman was lifted out of his chair, but he betrayed no fear and hung loosely in Peterson’s grip, ’What was her name?’ asked Marksman softly.
‘You don’t get to ask her name,’ growled Peterson.
‘Peterson! James,’ said Erika ‘Let him go!’ said Erika placing her hands over his.
‘We don’t choose to be like this, you know,’ croaked Marksman his head flopping back and forwards. Suddenly Joel was at Erika’s side and he had a powerful forearm wrapped around Peterson’s neck.
‘Let him go. Or I’ll break your neck,’ he said calmly.
‘We are police officers, we need to calm down here,’ said Erika moving to look directly at Peterson.
‘This constitutes an assault and I’d be with my rights,’ said Joel.
‘No one is going to do anything. Peterson let go, and you, take your hands off him,’ said Erika. There was a brief stand off for a moment and then Peterson let go of Marksman who slumped back in the chair. Joel let go of Peterson, but stood close his nostrils flaring breathing down on Peterson.
‘Back off,’ said Peterson.
‘No way mate.’
‘Peterson. I want you to leave. I’ll call you… Go NOW!’ said Erika. He glowered at them all and then left.
They settled back down and when Marksman was comfortable in his chair again, his clothes straight, he motioned for Joel to leave.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Erika. ‘I came here to ask you questions as a witness, and I expected you to be treated that way.’
He nodded.
‘I’ve looked over your statement and it says you followed Jessica on the 5th, 6th and you were watching her on the morning of the 7th August outside her house.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I was in love with her… I can see you grimace. But you have to understand I can’t control how I feel. I’m repulsed by my desires, I cannot control them. She was a beautiful little girl. I first saw her at the local newsagent with her mother. It was maybe early June in 1990. She wore a blue dress and her hair was in a matching blue ribbon. Her hair was luminous and she was holding her little brothers hand while her mother paid the newspaper bill. I remember he was pulling faces and she kept laughing. It was like music.’
‘Okay. How did they seem, as a family?’
‘Happy go lucky. Although…’
‘What?’
‘Twice I saw Jessica with the mother and the sister…They were out at the local play park a few minutes from the house. Jessica was playing and they were sat at a bench having rows.’
‘What about?’
‘I don’t know. I couldn’t hear from where I was.’
‘Where was that?’
’There was a bench on the opposite side of the park.’
‘And you took pictures of Jessica?’
‘And some video too. I won a camcorder, in a competition at the Co-op…’ his eyes lit up and for the for a moment he smiled at the memory. His skin crinkled upwards as one pulling his eyes tighter.
‘It got quite vicious on one occasion. Marianne slapped Laura across the face. She also used to slap Jessica on the legs quite frequently. But I suppose it was a long time ago. These days people would be shocked, back then it was usual to slap your children. And those Catholics know all about meteing out corporal punishment.’
‘Laura had just turned nineteen, and her mother slapped her around the face.’
Marksman nodded and then rested his chin on his chest, the scar tissue bunching up like crepe paper.
‘She slapped her mother back, gave as good as she got.’
‘What happened to those videos and photos?’
‘They were seized by the police. They were never returned to me. I don’t know why, it’s just video of a park.’
‘Did you see anyone else suspicious?’
‘Apart from me? God, I don’t know. There was that local loon, Bob Jennings.’
Erika sat up, ‘What was he doing?’
‘He was a council gardener. Bit slow, so they got him cheap no doubt. He was there a couple of times clipping hedges. He was harmless though, they questioned him, but nothing came of it. I always thought it was of his connections.’
‘He was a homeless loner wasn’t he?’
‘Yeah, but from money. He has a sour faced old bitch of a sister. If she’s alive, she probably is. The blue blooded ones always go on forever.’
‘Who is his sister?’
‘The honourable Rosemary Hooley.’
27
It was late when Erika and Peterson arrived in Hayes. They had joined the rush hour crowds and taken a direct train back from London Bridge. Peterson had been apologetic, but Erika was more excited by their lead.
‘Why didn’t Rosemary mention that Bob Jennings was her brother?’ she said speaking in a low voice. They had to stand, packed in at the back of a crowded carriage.
‘And she knew we’d just found, you know who in the you know where,’ muttered Peterson. A short sweaty man was crushed in beside them with a paper but he was staring. He looked away when they both turned to him.
‘I want to talk to her and I don’t care how bloody honourable she is,’ said Erika leaning into Peterson’s ear.
It was a short walk up from the station. Several lame fireworks whizzed into the sky and popped, and there was a faint smell of woodsmoke.
Rosemary Hooley had said she lived at the Old Vicarage, and it was one of an idyllic line of stone houses facing the west side of the common, by the Croydon Road entrance.
The smell of woodsmoke grew stronger as they opened the low front gate and came into the front garden of the vicarage. The house was thatched, and the front beautifully kept, with a neat mossy lawn dotted with dead leaves and over looked by two low windows with stone arches. One of the windows was double aspect, and through a cosy little front room, where a fire blazed, they caught a glimpse of Rosemary Hooley stood in the back garden, nursing a small pile of hedge clippings to light. They began to smoke violently. When Erika closed the gate the blond Labrador heard and came bounding round the corner, bowling towards them so fast, and only stopping inches away.
‘Serge!’ cried Rosemary coming to a side gate leading round to the back garden. She saw Erika and Peterson and took a breath,
‘Ah, I thought I’d see you both again. ‘Tea?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Erika. Rosemary pulled off her battered gloves and indicated they should follow.
* * *
A glossy green Aga dominated the kitchen, providing warmth and comfort from the cold outside. She crashed about pulling out cups, milk and sugar, and a Victoria sponge on an old willow pattern plate. Erika and Peterson sat awkwardly at a small wooden table covered in old copies of the Rad
io Times, a car radio with wires hanging out of the back, and a bowl of blackening bananas. Two scrawny cats were asleep in the middle, and Erika could see one had a huge tick on the top of its head.
Rosemary came over with milk and sugar. She picked up the first cat; tossed it onto the floor where it landed shocked on its four paws. She picked up the second greying cat with the tick and in a swift movement twisted it out. She let the cat drop to the floor and held the tick up to the light of the window between her knuckles.
‘There, you see, you have to get it out with all the head intact.’ She held it toward Peterson, it’s black hair-fine legs wriggling and he turned away looking queasy.
Rosemary moved away to the sink and dropped it down the plughole, activating the garbage disposal with a roar. Erika noted she didn’t wash her hands as she poured them tea.
‘So. Dead girl at the bottom of the quarry… Bad business… Very bad,’ she said taking a slurp of her tea. A little dribbled down her chin and she wiped it with the back of her sleeve.
‘We asked you about the house by the quarry a few days ago,’ started Peterson.
‘Yes. I was there, I remember.’
‘You said that a man squatted in the house… Bob Jennings. Why didn’t you mention that he was your brother?’ asked Erika.
‘You never asked!’ she replied bluntly.
‘We’re asking now. And we’d like all the information. The quarry is now a murder scene, and your brother was living beside it,’ said Erika. Rosemary took another gulp of her tea and looked a little chastised. ‘How long did your brother live in the house?’
‘Years, I don’t know eleven years… As I said the poor bugger was only a few months off being able to claim squatters rights. And then he died.’
‘When?’ asked Erika.
Rosemary sat back in her chair and thought for a moment, ‘it would have been 1981 until 1991…’
‘And when did he die?’
‘He passed away in the autumn of 199o.’
‘Can you be more exact?’ asked Erika.
‘I suppose so, hang on…’ she got up and went through to another room where they could hear drawers opening and papers rustling.
‘The quarry was searched three months after Jessica went missing, so that would have been November 1990,’ said Peterson.
‘Ah I have it here,’ said Rosemary coming back through to the kitchen with a piece of yellowing paper. She slid it across the table and they saw it was a death certificate.
‘This says he passed away on 28th November 1990,’ said Erika reading. She scanned down the document. ‘Cause of death was by hanging.’ She looked up at Rosemary, adding, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘My brother was a lost soul. One of those people who slipped through the cracks of society.’
‘What was wrong with him?’
‘We never had a complete diagnosis. He was my older brother and back then, you just sat at the back of the class as a troublemaker, there were no child psychologists. The only job he held down was a gardener for the council… I tried to have him here with me, but he would sleepwalk, or disappear leaving the door open. That was back when my husband was alive, and our daughter was small. We couldn’t have him here. He’d go missing for weeks on end and then he’d appear at the door. I’d feed him, give him money. He went to prison twice for thieving, silly stuff. He’d see something bright and shiny in a shop, fall in love with it, and slip it in his pocket. No malice.’
‘I’m sorry to have to ask this, but was he ever a suspect in the disappearance of Jessica Collins?’
At this suggestion, her manner changed completely.
‘How dare you! My brother was many things, but a child killer? No. Never. He didn’t have it in him and even if he did, he could never have masterminded something like that!’
‘I’m sorry to have to ask. Did the police ever talk to him?’
‘Well, I don’t know, maybe. Shouldn’t you be the ones telling me that?’
‘As I say, I’m sorry to have to ask this…’
‘There was an exhaustive investigation! And you’re asking me twenty-six years later?’
‘Mrs Hooley, we are asking questions, nothing more. And to be honest, we’re not sure why you were so evasive when we spoke to you on the common?’
‘Evasive? How was I evasive? You asked me a question, about who lived in the house by the quarry and I told you that it was Bob Jennings… Why do we all have to act in society like we’re at a bloody confessional? I didn’t lie to you, I merely answered your question.’
‘But you must have heard that it was the scene of a murder?’
‘And my brother has been dead for many years. You must forgive me… What do you call it these days, a senior moment!’
‘Do you have a key to the cottage by the quarry?’
‘No. He was a squatter. I doubt he had one.’
‘What did you do with your brother’s personal effects?’
‘He had virtually no possessions. I gave what he had to the local charity shops. There was a silver St Christopher necklace and it was buried with him.’
‘Did you think he was suicidal?’
Rosemary took a breath and her face sagged a little.
‘No. It just wasn’t in his nature, and as far hanging, he had a wild phobia for things being around his neck. As a child he refused to wear a tie or button his shirt. It was one of the reasons he was uneducated. He was expelled from every school. The St Christopher I mentioned, he wore on his wrist. So for him to fashion a noose and then hang himself…’ Her eyes became misty and she grappled for a tissue in her sleeve. Now I think you’ve taken up more than enough of my time and my hospitality…’
* * *
It was dark and the temperature had dropped when Erika and Peterson came out of the gate. They could see Rosemary through the double aspect window, beside the pile of vegetation in the garden which was now ablaze. In her hand she a can of what looked like petrol. The road lit up orange.
‘Do you think Bob Jennings could have been our man?’ asked Peterson as they crossed the road to the gravel patch where they’d left the car.
‘It’s possible,’ said Erika. She’d told Peterson about the video tapes seized from Trevor Marksman earlier, ‘We need to find those tapes, and see if Bob Jennings is in any of them. It could be a lead, we could use it in an appeal.’
‘If he is our man, it would be a record in case solving,’ said Peterson. A firework screamed up into the sky and burst with a bang. Lighting up the common, the bank of bare trees, and the darkness filling the trees beyond.
28
Erika gave her team its first day off in over a week, but despite it being Saturday, she came in to the station to catch up with paperwork and tried to track down the videotapes which had been seized by police from Trevor Marksman. She spent half of the morning going through the case files and then went down to the evidence store in the basement, and spent the rest of the day trying to track down the videotapes. All she had was the evidence number. DI Crawford arrived just as Erika was making herself a coffee using the kettle in the staffroom on the ground floor. He seemed surprised to see her.
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here,’ he said.
‘I can say the same for you,’ she replied giving him the once over. He was dressed in jeans and a jumper with his coat. She pulled the tea bag out of her cup. ‘So why are you here after having worked seven days’ straight?’
‘I left my mobile behind…’ just as he said it, a phone started to ring in his pocket. He pulled it out and cancelled the call. ‘My second phone,’ he added.
‘I’m just going upstairs,’ said Erika. She eft with her tea and he followed her up to the incident room. She put her tea down and busied herself with some paperwork whilst watching him out of the corner of her eye as he searched the floor under his desk.
‘I thought I’d dropped it. But it’s not here.’
‘Okay, well I’ll keep my eye out. What does it look like?’
>
‘Um, it’s a Samsung. Smart phone, older model with a cracked case on the back.’
‘I’ll look out for it.’
He stood for a moment longer and then left. She waited by the window and watched as he emerged from the front of the station and crossed the road, talking intently into his phone. Making a mental note to keep her eye on him.
* * *
She left the station just after six, having spent the day in a search which went nowhere. She put a call through to the Specialist Casework Investigation Team, and gave the young girl on the end of the phone the crime number of the evidence, but the girl didn’t fill her with hope when she said she’d follow it up.
She took a shower and went to keep a longstanding engagement she’d been looking forward to. Dinner, with Isaac Strong.
She arrived at his house just before eight. He lived in a smart terraced house, which had an effortless elegance which always made her feel calm. She was planning on staying over so they could drink and put the world to rights. He answered the door in jeans, T-shirt and a blue apron. A delicious smell of roasting chicken mixed with rosemary wafted out.
‘Red or white?’ he said. She held up two bottles of red she’d bought and he peered at them.
‘Not bad, I’ve taught you well. The Chilean is nicer, let’s open it first. We’ll have the second when our tastebuds have ben knocked out by the first!’
‘Cheeky,’ she said. She followed him through to the kitchen which was pale and elegant with a French rustic-theme; hand painted white cabinets, work surfaces of pale wood. He pulled an ice bucket from the heavy butlers sink in white ceramic, where there was Prosecco.
’Let’s have something fizzy first,’ he said pouring her a glass. She looked around the kitchen and wondered, as she always did if, as a Forensic Pathologist, Isaac deliberately steered clear of stainless steel.
She sat and as he cooked, she told him about her day, weaving in and out of stuff about the case.