Echoes of the Dead (9 page)

There were several stallholders already standing around the cafe, and when Woodend ordered his tea, one of them slid four pennies across the counter and said, ‘Have this one on me, Charlie.'

Woodend looked at his unexpected benefactor – a late-middle-aged man in a flat cap.

‘I'm sorry, but do I know you?' he asked.

The expression which came to the man's face was a mixture of mild surprise and mild hurt.

He certainly
thinks
that I ought to know him, the chief inspector realized.

But then, people
did
think that, didn't they? And it was understandable in a way, for while he had moved on, into a world in which he was surrounded by a sea of so many ever-changing faces that even his dustbin of a mind couldn't store them all, this man's world had remained as fixed and immutable as it had always been.

‘I'm Len Bowyer,' the man said awkwardly, as if he still could not quite believe such an introduction was necessary.

Woodend grinned. ‘Of course you are,' he said. ‘Len Bowyer of Bowyer's Bakery – purveyor of the tastiest meat pies in Central Lancs.'

Bowyer returned his grin. ‘That's right,' he agreed. ‘An' I trust you'll be eatin' a few of them pies while you're up here.'

‘You can put money on it – I'd be a fool to miss the opportunity,' Woodend told him.

The smile drained from Bowyer's face, and he said, ‘It's terrible what happened to that little lass, Charlie.'

‘Yes, it is,' Woodend agreed. ‘Did you know her?'

‘Well,
of course
I knew her. I know pretty much everybody who works on this market.'

‘I assume the local bobbies have already asked you if you've noticed anybody in particular hangin' around her auntie's stall recently,' Woodend said.

‘Then you assume wrong,' Bowyer replied. ‘I've seen neither hide nor hair of them.'

Woodend sighed. Ever since he'd first started working at Scotland Yard, he'd heard other officers talking about the yokels who inhabited the provincial police forces, and had forced himself to bite back a scornful response. Now, out in the provinces himself – back on his old stamping ground – he was learning that all the sneers and lip-curling were not entirely without foundation.

And it was a bitter pill to swallow.

‘Well, if they didn't ask you about it, I certainly will,' he said. ‘
Did
you notice anybody?'

The expression on Bowyer's face showed he was giving the matter serious consideration. ‘She was a pretty girl, so naturally she attracted her fair share of attention from the lads,' he said finally. ‘You know what that's like, don't you?'

Oh yes, Woodend thought, he knew all right, because, in his time, he had been one of those lads himself.

He remembered hanging around the market on a Saturday, directing cheeky and flirtatious comments at the girls behind the stalls in an effort to make them blush. But it had all been good-natured, and though the girls pretended to be annoyed, they would probably have been disappointed if the lads had
not
bothered them.

‘How did Lilly
feel
about all the attention she was gettin'?' he asked Len Bowyer.

‘The whole business seemed to make her a bit uncomfortable,' Bowyer replied. ‘To tell you the truth, she didn't really get on with people of her own age. She was more drawn to—'

He stopped, abruptly.

‘Go on,' Woodend encouraged.

‘I'm not one to talk ill of the dead,' Bowyer said awkwardly. ‘I mean, strictly speakin', what she did was all very innocent, but put it into cold, hard words an' you might end up getting' the wrong impression.'

‘I won't,' Woodend promised.

‘Well, you know, it's easy enough for you to say that now, but once I've told you . . .' Bowyer fretted.

‘Do you want her killer caught, or not?' Woodend asked bluntly.

‘She . . . she used to get very friendly with some of the stallholders,' Bowyer said uncertainly, then added in a rush, ‘and I'm not referrin' to the young ones now – I'm talkin' about them that are close to my age.'

‘What exactly do you mean by “get very friendly”?'

‘Well, she'd go all giggly when they were around, an' sometimes she'd brush up against them. But there wasn't nothin' sexual in it. I mean to say, if one of them had tried to touch her where he shouldn't, I'm sure she'd have—'

‘All she wanted was a bit of affection,' Woodend interrupted.

‘That's right,' Bowyer agreed, with some relief. ‘All she wanted was a bit of affection.'

The rabbits, the guinea pigs, the hamsters and the older men – they were all a desperate attempt, on Lilly's part, to fill the gaping hole which her dad's death had left in her life.

It was more than likely her killer had understood that, Woodend thought, and had used it to lure her to the potting shed on the abandoned allotment – which meant, in turn, that he had been no stranger, but had spent some time studying her before making his move.

And where would have been better to study her than in the market, where her loneliness had been so apparent that even a casual observer like Len Bowyer had noticed it?

Woodend pictured the girl walking towards the shed where she would meet her end. He saw the smile on her face, and the sparkle in her eyes. Perhaps she even held her killer's hand, and pretended it was her father's.

As they reached the shed, the image in Woodend's mind's eye changed, and though the girl still had the body of a gawky thirteen-year-old called Lilly, it was his own daughter's head on top of the thin shoulders.

‘Are you all right, Charlie?' Len Bowyer asked worriedly.

‘I'll have that bastard,' Woodend growled. ‘If it's the last thing I do, I'll have him.'

The police surgeon, Dr Stuart Heap, was in his mid-forties, and had an air of self-importance and self-congratulation which clung to him like an ostentatiously heavy fur coat.

‘I can spare you five minutes – but no more,' he told Woodend.

‘That should be more than enough, sir,' Woodend said. ‘Five minutes of
your
time must be worth – oh, I don't know – at least seven and half minutes of almost anybody else's.'

‘
Much
more than that,' the doctor said, slightly huffily. ‘Well, I expect you'd like to see the stiff.'

‘Aye, I thought I might as well, now that I'm here,' Woodend replied, with the deceptive mildness which would serve as a warning signal to later police surgeons, but went right over the head of this one.

The doctor took hold of the handle of the refrigerated drawer, and slid it smoothly open.

‘There you go,' he said, with all the flourish of a music hall magician.

Woodend gazed down at the girl's body, and felt a sudden stabbing pain in his chest.

She was so young, he thought.

So
very
young – and so
very
vulnerable.

‘Thank you, you can close it up again now,' he told the doctor.

Heap slid the drawer closed. ‘Well, if that's all . . .'

‘It isn't actually,' Woodend said firmly. ‘I'd like you to tell me about the post-mortem, if you don't mind.'

Heap glanced pointedly at his watch. ‘There's no need to – it's all in my report,' he said.

‘Ah, but you see, I don't like wearin' out my eyes readin' reports,' Woodend replied. ‘I'd rather hear directly from the fellers who wrote them.'

‘As I think I've already explained, my time is very valuable . . .' the doctor began.

Woodend put his massive hand on the other man's shoulder. ‘Just tell me in your own words, Doc,' he said. ‘An' do try to steer clear of all the jargon, because I'm really not very bright.'

‘Well . . . err . . . she was raped and then she was strangled,' the doctor said.

‘There's no chance that she was a willing participant, is there?' Woodend asked.

The doctor grinned. ‘In the strangulation?' he asked.

‘That'd be a joke, would it?' Woodend said stonily.

‘Yes, I suppose you might call it a little “mortuary humour”,' Heap admitted.

‘The thing is, I've got a little lass of my own,' Woodend said softly, as he increased – ever so slightly – the pressure on the doctor's shoulder. ‘An' when I see
this
little lass lyin' there, I think of my Annie, an' I start getting' angry.'

‘You really shouldn't . . .'

‘Which means, in turn, that while your little stand-up comedy act might go down a storm with your fellow quacks after they've had a few pints, it doesn't actually do a lot for me. Do you see what I'm gettin' at?'

‘Err . . . yes, I suppose I do,' Heap said reluctantly.

‘So let's start again, shall we?' Woodend suggested, removing his hand from the doctor's shoulder. ‘Is there any chance at all that Lilly Dawson was a willin' participant?'

‘None,' the doctor said, doing his very best to sound both serious
and
unintimidated. ‘The bruising on her thighs indicates that she was being held down, and the further bruising around the vaginal area shows that entry was forced. And then, of course, there's the skin under her nails.'

‘
What
skin under her nails?' Woodend demanded. ‘There was no mention of that in your report.'

‘I thought you told me you didn't read reports,' Heap said accusingly.

‘I lied,' Woodend countered. ‘It's one of my worst habits.' He paused for a moment. ‘So there
was
skin under her nails?'

Heap frowned. ‘Yes, and, do you know, I could have sworn that, when I was writing the report, I—'

‘Was it her
attacker's
skin?'

‘Almost definitely.'

‘So what have you learned from the skin? Can you give me any idea of the rapist's age or what he did for a livin'?'

The doctor laughed. ‘Good heavens, no – not with the kind of sample we had. I'm a forensic scientist, not a miracle worker.'

‘What about the girl's personal effects?' Woodend asked, finally giving up on the man. ‘Are they still at the police lab?'

‘No, they sent them back here, so that they could be released to the mother at the same time as the body.'

‘I'd like to see them.'

‘Certainly. No problem at all. I'll get one of my girls to show them to you.'

‘What's it like, bein' one of the doctor's “girls”?' Woodend asked the smartly dressed young clerical officer, Mrs Walton, as she laid out Lilly's clothes on the table.

‘It's like a dream come true,' the woman replied.

And they both knew what she meant by that.

Lilly had been wearing a navy blue skirt, a white blouse, blue serge bloomers, a scarlet cardigan and grey knee socks. There was no brassiere – the poor little kid hadn't needed one.

‘That'd be her school uniform,' Mrs Walton said.

‘Yes, it would,' the chief inspector thought.

And the fact she'd been wearing her uniform on a Saturday came as no surprise to him, because uniforms were expensive and swallowed up most of the money that working-class mums had budgeted for clothing.

‘Where are the envelopes?' Woodend asked.

‘What envelopes?'

‘The evidence envelopes.'

‘There aren't any.'

‘Yokels!' Woodend's colleagues at Scotland Yard jeered at him from inside his head.

And he had nothing to come back at them with.

Had the Whitebridge police lab done anything with the clothes, other than give them a cursory examination and straighten them out?

On the face of things, it didn't seem likely.

‘I'd like some surgical gloves, please,' Woodend said.

Though that was probably a waste of time, he added mentally. Because it wouldn't come as a total surprise to him if – having given the clothes the once-over – the lab team hadn't sent them out to be bloody dry-cleaned!

The collar and cuffs of the blouse had been skilfully darned to disguise the fact that they were fraying. The socks had been darned too, in a lovingly careful way that almost reduced Woodend to tears.

And it was while he was examining the socks that he came across something that the technicians appeared to have overlooked – and he himself had never expected to find.

EIGHT

T
he moment Woodend walked in though the main entrance of Whitebridge police headquarters, he could sense a feeling of anticipation in the air. No, it was more than just anticipation, he decided, as he walked up towards the desk sergeant's counter – the air was positively crackling with excitement.

The desk sergeant himself was leaning back in his chair and chatting into the phone.

‘Well, it's what I've always said,' he was telling the person at the other end of the line. ‘These bobbies from London might
think
they're the bee's knees, but when you're talkin' about doin' a bit of real police work, you're far better off leavin' it up to the—' He looked up, and saw Woodend standing there. ‘I'll have to call you back,' he said into the phone, before hanging up.

Woodend held out his warrant card. ‘I'd like to speak to DCI Paine, if he's available,' he said.

‘Oh, I'm sure he's available
now
, sir,' the sergeant said, cockily.