Snow Kills (10 page)

‘Yes,’ Dylan said placing the coveted box on the desk in front of him. What information would the papers within hold, he wondered as his hand hovered over them like a blind man touching Braille.

‘Well, if you’re sure. You’re the boss,’ Trevor said, shrugging his shoulders before leaving, trailing the empty trolley behind him.

Dylan closed the office door behind him to savour the moment in peace. Carefully and with some trepidation, he opened the cardboard box and lifted from it a large, faded file tied with string. The paper was yellow, even golden, in places. The edges were roughed up and the corners curled and brittle. Dylan sneezed loudly as he brushed the top, worn, moss green cardboard cover with the palm of his hand. ‘The unexplained disappearance of Tina Walker, MURDER?’ he read aloud.

The papers and police forms were partially handwritten and partially typed, some in duplicate with the typewriter carbon paper still attached. Adrenaline started coursing through Dylan‘s veins as he eagerly started to read. Tina Walker was just an ordinary girl who had been wearing fashionable clothing of the day and likewise unsuitable for the weather – acid washed denim jacket, stretchy short black mini skirt, bat winged pink polo neck jumper, bright pink and black striped leg warmers and a pink headband with beads and jelly bangles on her arm to complete the look of that era. There was a picture of her and photographs of clothing identical to that she had been wearing.

A knock came at his door and without looking up, he shouted, ‘Come in.’ Boxes piled high upon an upright trolley were steered in. Dylan kept reading as Trevor positioned them strategically round him.

‘You sure you want it all?’ Trevor asked.

Still without looking up, Dylan nodded, absorbed as he was in the covering summary. Box after box continued to arrive.

Donny Longbottom, the would-be Teddy boy, hadn’t been hard to trace, although he hadn’t shown up outside the hairdressers. He was nineteen years old and had already been brought to the attention of the Local Intelligence Officer for an incident of indecent exposure.

Ned and Andy asked to speak to him in the presence of his mother, with whom he lived in a semi detached council house on the Greenaway Estate. The officers needed a parent or guardian there, as his police record showed a responsible adult needed to be in attendance. They hoped the responsible adult didn’t turn out to be a contradiction in terms.

Ned knocked on the door of the address they had been given.

‘Mrs Longbottom,’ he said as the door opened and he was faced with a scowling, middle-aged, bespectacled woman. He showed her his warrant card.

‘What’s he done now?’ Donny’s mother said.

It wasn’t a good start.

‘He’s hardly been out of the house with the weather being so bad,’ protested Christine Longbottom as Andy showed her his warrant card and she waved them inside.

Andy explained that Donny had been reported as a client of the missing hairdresser, as well as having often been seen sitting on the wall outside the shop where she worked.

‘That isn’t a crime, is it?’ she said. ‘Well, at least we know his medication’s working,’ she added, grabbing a packet of cigarettes from the hallway table.

Andy and Ned looked at each other.

‘Well, if he’s only looking...’ she said, taking a cigarette out of the packet. ‘Look, I can’t watch him every minute of the day can I? He’s a grown man. D o n n y,’ she screeched at the top of her voice from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Get your backside down, here; the Police want to see you.’

The house was unexpectedly neat and tidy. Christine Longbottom led them into the lounge. In an armchair, in the conservatory beyond the patio doors they could see an elderly woman who appeared to be asleep. Her head was on the headrest and her mouth wide open.

‘She’s deaf as a bleedin’ doornail,’ Christine said, beckoning them to take a seat. She walked over to put the cigarette packet on the fireplace and placed the cigarette in the corner of her mouth but continued to talk. ‘Where is the little shit?’ The cigarette bounced up and down to the rhythms of her speech. She took a lighter out of a well-worn leather case and lit it. Taking a long hard drag, she called her son again, ‘Donny, will you come down here now?’ She exhaled the smoke through her nose, like a smoking chimney, then removed the cigarette from her mouth and pursed her lips, flouncing over to the door to the hallway. The two men heard a burring sound and turned in time to see Christine rushing to the foot of the stairs.

‘Get off your Gran’s stair lift, before I knock you off the bloody thing,’ she yelled, striking her son across his head with the palm of her hand.

Donny walked into the room in front of his mother, somewhat subdued and rubbing the back of his head. He was dressed in black skin-tight jeans and a red checked shirt, with nothing on his feet. Without acknowledging the visitors, he walked straight to the mirror over the fireplace and started to comb his wet hair with a fine-toothed comb from his back pocket.

‘DC Wormald and DC Granger,’ Andy said.‘We’re investigating the disappearance of a young woman you know from Envy Hair and Beauty.’

Donny calmly continued to coiffure his hairstyle into a quiff at the front and then with great precision expertly combed the hair at the back and around the sides of his head into a DA.

‘Kayleigh, your hairdresser, she’s missing,’ said Ned.

Donny stopped what he was doing and stared at the men through the mirror, but said nothing.

‘You know who we mean, don’t you Donny?’

‘Yeah,’ he said turning to face them. ‘I’m not stupid. The one with the nice tits,’ he said, raising an eyebrow at the officers.

‘Do you want a crack?’ Christine said. She tutted, ‘just for once, can’t you just answer the officer in a civil manner?’ she said leaning forward and stubbing out her cigarette in a large green onyx ashtray on a glass table in the centre of the lounge.

‘Have you ever seen her anywhere other than at the hairdressers?’ Andy asked.

‘Why would I?’

‘You’d better bloody not have been pestering that girl,’ Christine said under her breath.

 Donny suddenly lunged at his mother. ‘Shut you’re cake’ole,’ he said. Mother and son were face to face, nose to nose, but she pushed him away, apparently unfazed by his outburst.

‘I saw something in the paper. When did she go missing?’ asked Christine.

‘White Wednesday,’ Ned said.

‘You had an appointment at the doctor‘s that day, didn’t you? One of them repeat prescriptions that he has to see you for, do you remember? You were in the back garden that afternoon building a snowman with that other lad, weren’t you?’ she said to Donny, then looked at the officers. ‘I remember it because I had to bollock him because they’d given the snowman a dick with the carrot I’d given them for the nose – and stupid as he is, he thought it was hilarious, rolling around in the snow. Wet through, he was. There’s times, believe you me, I wish I could do to him what I did to that carrot. Solve a lot of problems that would, I’ll tell you,’ she said.

Donny smirked. ‘As if!’

‘So, you behaving yourself these days Donny?’ said Andy.

‘Yeah,’ he replied, rubbing his bare foot frantically on the nylon carpet. He reached out to his mum and she jumped in shock at the positive static electric charge he passed to her.

‘You bloody idiot, stop that,’ she said. Donny laughed raucously, ran over to the doors of the conservatory and once again rubbed his foot on the carpet furiously.

‘Party trick,’ she said apologetically.

‘With your consent, we’ll have a quick look around Donny’s bedroom, Mrs Longbottom?’ She nodded. ‘Top of the stairs, first door on the left.’ The old woman in the conservatory let out a scream.

‘Donny, for fuck‘s sake. Give up, will you? You’ll bloody kill your Gran doing that one of these days.’

‘Well, at least we know grandma’s alive,’ said Ned, sniggering as he walked behind Andy up the stairs.

There were a lot of DVDs and magazines in Donny Longbottom’s bedroom but nothing that seemed out of place in a teenager‘s room. Andy pointed out a few risky ones to Ned, but he screwed up his face and they decided to leave them in situ.

Thanking Mrs Longbottom, the officers left the house.

‘I honestly thought she wasn’t breathing, you know,’ said Andy.

‘What? The Gran? Me neither. I wouldn’t bet she was when we first went in. Maybe the shock brought her back to life?’ Ned laughed.

‘I wouldn’t want a daughter of mine bringing a Donny Longbottom home, would you?’ said Andy.

‘Or a son!’

‘His hairstyle‘s not bad though, in fact it’s nearly as good as yours,’ Andy said as he put the car into first gear and looked in his rear view mirror before driving the CID car away from the kerb.

‘Cheeky twat,’ said Ned.

Dylan sat in his office digesting the information in the file and imagining the detectives of the day with their afro hairstyles, moustaches, trilby hats and weather-worn raincoats, for wasn’t that the dress code back then? Tina, along with her dark green coloured 21” frame Raleigh Cameo lady‘s bike, seemed to have disappeared into thin air too after her shift at the mill on that snowy night. Standeven Mill was now a collection of business units and luxury flats. The file showed that everyone at the Mill at the time was spoken to over a period of a few weeks but nothing was gleaned from the interviews and extensive searches. The investigation had been thorough, there was no doubt. The workers had been checked, as had strangers to the mill who had made deliveries that day. Detectives had spoken to anyone and everyone who they thought may have had any information, which was apparent from the amount of paperwork, and they had used every tool available to them at that time. The only comparison with the Kayleigh Harwood case was that a young girl had gone missing in the same area and in the same weather conditions. Dylan was sad that there weren’t any other striking similarities. He would speak with Barry Sharpe, he didn’t consider it urgent but he was intrigued.

The team were updated at the day’s debrief in respect of Donny Longbottom and the resemblances in the case to that of the disappearance of Tina Walker. Dylan told the assembled group that although he was aware of it, there was no evidence so far to support a link to the recent disappearance of Kayleigh Harwood.

Vicky confirmed that the shoe and jacket had been identified by Kayleigh’s mum and boyfriend as identical to the ones Kayleigh owned and was wearing on the day she went missing. ‘I’ve tried to convince them boss that she might just have dumped them because of hypothermia but they weren’t having none of it. They are obviously distraught at the finds.’

Vicky and Jackie had also visited some of the customers of the hairdressing salon where Kayleigh worked, but there was nothing of relevance to report. Dylan emphasised the need to trace people who were in the area on the night in question, even if they were only stranded for a short time. ‘We should be able to trace some from the abandoned cars, surely?’ he said. ‘The difference between Kayleigh going missing and Tina Walker twenty years ago is that we’ll find her, I’m sure of that,’ he told his team before they left. ‘Vicky, did you speak to Mavis Beanland yet or anyone at the nearby shelter?’

‘No sir. Mavis is not home yet and no one can tell us where her sister lives, but she is still on our list to see, as are the people at the shelters.’

‘Let me know when you’ve spoken to her, them.’

Vicky nodded.

Dylan was on the way home. Tomorrow was another day. Just for tonight he wanted to get home and hold Jen and Maisy in his arms. Maisy was growing daily. Gone were the days of just caring for her, she was becoming a real little character. A bit more hair, fewer wrinkles and she was noticing more about the world around her. He held her as Jen made the evening meal, Maisy’s tiny chubby hand gripped onto his long index finger and the connection ran all the way to the core of his being. She chuckled when he nibbled her foot or tickled her under the chin.

Jen listened to Dylan talking to his daughter soothingly, then all went quiet and when she put her head around the living room door, she found them both fast asleep. Dylan’s head had fallen back onto the cushion and Maisy was sprawled out on his flattened chest. Tears came into her eyes. She wished her mum could see how happy she was. That reminded her – she must ring dad.

‘I’ll just change her nappy before we eat, Jen,’ called Dylan, fifteen minutes later.

‘She was only changed just before you arrived home,’ she shouted back.

‘Well she certainly needs changing again, don’t you gorgeous?’ he said holding her away from him and curling up his nose as he walked into the kitchen, with Maisy in his outstretched arms. ‘Pooh,’ he said and she chuckled. ‘Just like your Mummy.’

Jen watched him carefully change Maisy’s nappy. He was a natural. Comfortable and warm, Maisy fell instantly back to sleep in her Moses basket, which gave them a chance to have their meal in peace.

‘I was speaking to Norman in LIO today. He says they make your arms ache when they’re babies and your heart ache when they grow up,’ said Dylan looking at Maisy adoringly.

‘Yes, and we’ll worry just as much about her brothers and sisters when they came along,’ she said, quietly kissing him on his cheek as she stood to take the dirty dishes to the sink.

Jack’s face was a picture and she stifled a laugh.

‘Isn’t it about time you were going back to work?’ he said.

Jen screwed up her face. ‘No, I’m thinking I might take a career break,’ she said. ‘And Jack?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maisy takes after you, not me,’ she said, smiling broadly.

The search of the quarry and its waters had been carefully carried out. The OSU team was satisfied that there were no bodies or other items of Kayleigh’s clothing in their depths.

 ‘Although to get down to the water was a nightmare, believe it or not once in it was quite clear. I’m sorry we didn’t get a result for you, sir,’ Sgt Clegg said to Dylan.