Cordon thought, one way or another, he was probably right. Walking away, breath raw, his heart hammered inside his chest. This time he’d managed it without a scratch.
31
Late afternoon. Karen was on the M1, heading north. A pool car, unmarked, no more than a couple of years old, clutch tight as an old man’s chest. The traffic travelling out of the city was already beginning to bunch and stall. When they played their second Neil Diamond track within the hour, she switched off Magic FM and, slipping an Aretha CD into place, notched up the volume just a tad.
The call had come through that morning, high-pitched, hesitant, a definite accent — South Yorkshire, somewhere close? — a young woman sounding early twenties at best. Jayne Andrew. No s. Jayne with a y. An address in Mansfield. Wayne Simon, he’d been hanging round the Four Seasons shopping centre where she worked. Where she lived, too. No doubt, no doubt at all. Used to go out with him, didn’t she? Years back. Two or three, at least, must be. She’d been into the local police station and they’d said they’d have a word with security in the centre, drive by the house where she lived, but, far as she could tell, they never had. Told her to call the police in London, so that’s what she’d done. She hoped that was okay?
‘Fine,’ Karen had assured her. ‘You did the right thing.’
Ramsden, Costello, the rest of her team were out of the office, busy; she could have sent someone junior, but somehow she fancied it herself. As long as what the woman was claiming panned out and it wasn’t just another lonely fantasist, desperate for some attention, this was the best lead they’d had. And there was the weather — earlier there’d been scarcely a cloud worth its name overhead, the sky a pale but definite blue, all the promise of a lovely, late winter day. A still-distant harbinger of spring. Just right for a drive, an hour or more alone in the car with just the stereo for company. A change is gonna come, sang Aretha, and who was to say she was wrong?
Jayne Andrew was whey faced and small boned — petite, the word — four or five months’ pregnant and just beginning to show. Hair that had once been dyed blonde hung lank past her face; grey eyes, dark lashes, surprisingly long. She was wearing a loose top, stretch pants, slippers on her feet. She squinted at the identification Karen showed her without really seeing it and invited her inside.
The block of flats where she lived looked to have been built in the seventies: flat-fronted, flat-roofed, a rectangular box of identical units with a straggle of grass out front and cream-coloured exterior walls in sore need of several fresh coats of paint. Jayne Andrew’s flat was on the upper floor, neat and small, the furniture a mixture of what Karen assumed were hand-me-downs and newer stuff from Ikea.
‘Not working today?’
She shrugged. ‘Keep cutting back, don’t they? Three days a week at the moment, that’s all there is.’ She touched the curve of her belly. ‘Not as that’ll matter much pretty soon.’
‘When’s the baby due?’
‘June. June 15th.’
‘And is this the dad?’ Karen pointed at the photograph framed above the television, a young man in military uniform, staring out.
‘That’s Ryan, yes. He’s with the Royal Engineers. A corporal.’
‘Nice-looking man. Handsome.’
Pride reflected in the younger woman’s eyes. ‘He’s in Afghanistan. Helmand.’ She pulled at a stray length of hair. ‘He’s always telling me, don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll be fine. An’ I know he will. He’s careful, Ryan. Not like some of them — things he’s told me. But even so — you see these things on the news, you know, his family has been informed, and all them people linin’ the streets …’
She turned away to hide the prick of tears.
Karen rested a hand on her shoulder and she flinched.
‘I don’t know about you,’ Karen said, stepping back, ‘but I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea.’
‘Yes, of course. Sorry, I didn’t think …’
‘Why don’t you let me …?’
‘No, no, You sit down. Please.’
Karen stood by the window instead. A short, bow-legged dog, some kind of bulldog cross, was waddling its way across the patchy grass below. A young woman in a puffa jacket, no more than late teens, surely, went past along the other side of the street, one child strapped into a buggy, another lagging behind. Over the crowded hotchpotch of rooftops, the sky was beginning to darken, the evening soon setting in.
The tea came in bright mugs, placed carefully on coasters. ‘I didn’t know if you wanted sugar …’
‘No, thanks. This is fine.’
They sat for a moment, awkwardly, one leaning forward, the other back. Jayne Andrew avoiding Karen’s gaze. The tea, as Karen’s grandmother might have said, looked as if it lacked the strength to stand.
‘Wayne Simon, how did you know him?’
‘Before, you mean?’
‘Yes, before.’
‘That were ages back. Before I met Ryan. I was out wi’ me mates. Sat’day night, you know. Wayne was there on his own, this pub we were all in. Up here working. Construction, what he did. Started chattin’ to us, just, you know, friendly like. I thought he were nice. Not loud or rough or anything.’ She looked directly at Karen for the first time. ‘When I heard what he’s supposed to have done. His wife and kiddie. I couldn’t believe it. Just couldn’t.’
‘Back then, though, you went out with him?’
‘For a while, yes. A few months, maybe, six at most. That were all.’
‘It was serious, though?’
‘He thought it were.’
‘And you didn’t know there was somebody else? Down in London?’
‘Course not.’
Karen swallowed down a mouthful of weak tea. ‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing. Nothing really. No row or anything. Not then. Wayne went back down to London when the job he was working was over. Like all of a sudden it didn’t matter.’
‘And you were upset?’
‘Not really. Like I said, it were always more serious for him’n for me.’ She pushed her hands up across her face. ‘Only set eyes on him the once after that till now. Just the once. Fetched up here, didn’t he? Out of the blue. Bangin’ on the door. Shoutin’ all kinds of things. Filthy things, some of them. Been drinking, mind you, but all the same. I was with Ryan by then and thank God he were out, cause Ryan’d’ve killed him. Still would, if he found out what was happening.’
‘And now, he’s been what? Making a commotion? More of the same?’
‘No. That’s it. He just stands there, right up against the shop window. One minute he’s there and when I look again he’s gone. As if I’m making it up, but I’m not. Most times I’m on the till, see, close by the door and there’s only the glass between us.’ She shivered. ‘The manager, he’s complained to security but that don’t seem to make any difference ’cause the next time you look he’s back again.’
‘And he doesn’t say anything?’
‘Just the once. I hadn’t even seen him, not that day, didn’t know he was there. An’ all of a sudden he comes up behind me. “How come,” he says, “you filthy slut, you whore, you’re carryin’ another man’s baby?” Whispers it, right in my ear. I started crying, couldn’t help it. Then when I dared look round he’d gone.’
She reached out for Karen’s hand.
‘I’m frightened. Frightened he’ll do something. Hurt me. Hurt my baby.’
Karen squeezed her hand. ‘It’s okay. I had a word with the local police on the way up. Maybe they weren’t taking this as seriously as they should. I’ll go and see them in person before I leave. Suggest a panic button. The minute you see Wayne again, if he approaches you, you activate that, it’ll go right through to the station. I’ll ask for a drive-by outside here every hour through the night. And see if we can’t get someone in plain clothes in the shopping centre to help out security.’ She squeezed the small hand again. ‘Nothing will happen. He’s not going to
