it?’
She was silent for a moment. ‘Yes, I am. Not in my mind, but in my heart. I feel sure that’s Jane Raven Lee.’
Cooper nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s my feeling, too.’
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Audrey Steele’s mother lived on the Devonshire Estate, in a cream rendered semi that had a washing line full of sheets billowing in the back garden, You didn’t see many washing lines these days, but maybe Vivien Gill was the old-fashioned type.
Inside, a rustic-effect brick fireplace had been set into one wall of the sitting room, and a central heating radiator on another. Above the picture rails, the ceiling was coved and artexed. At the back of the house was a kitchen smelling strongly of disinfectant. When he followed Mrs Gill into it, Cooper became aware of a sickeningly sweet scent that might have several sources he didn’t want to think about. A baby sat in a high chair at the table, its mouth smeared with something sticky and yellow. Doidy Cup and Bickiepegs were set out on the counter.
‘This is my granddaughter,’ said Mrs Gill. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’
‘She’s beautiful,’ said Cooper, giving the child a brief wave. He might learn the attraction of babies one day, but for now the appeal was lost on him. Once they could walk and talk, and look after their own toilet arrangements, he had no problem with children. But babies made him a bit nervous.
In the sitting room, Vivien Gill made him sit down in one of the armchairs, though he told her he couldn’t stay long.
‘Mrs Gill, I don’t know whether you’ve spoken to Ellen Walker today …’
‘I talked to Ellen last night. She had some idea about a picture in the paper. An artist’s impression, or something.’
‘A facial reconstruction, yes.’
‘I thought it was a daft idea myself.’
‘Did you see the picture?’
‘No. I don’t get the evening paper.’
Cooper looked out of the window and saw a man watching the street from a house opposite. Maybe that was why Mrs Gill had wanted him to sit down, so that he couldn’t be seen
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by nosey neighbours. She hadn’t otherwise seemed particularly hospitable. Of course, this was the Devonshire Estate, where residents were practised at recognizing a police officer, even out of uniform.
‘It was on the TV news, too,’ he said.
‘I’ve got the child to look after. I don’t spend all my time watching telly.’
‘May I show you a copy of the photo?’
Mrs Gill squinted at the picture he handed her, held it up to the light, then put it down while she found her glasses. ‘It doesn’t look human,’ she said. ‘It’s just a clay model, painted up.’
‘Does it bear any resemblance to your daughter?’
‘No. It’s daft.’
She handed the photograph back dismissively. But Cooper noticed that her hand was shaking a little more. The baby was snivelling and getting ready to start crying, but Mrs Gill ignored it.
‘What about these items of clothing?’ said Cooper gently. ‘I’m sorry about the condition of them. Do they look familiar at all?’
Mrs Gill barely glanced at the second set of photographs. They had been taken in the mortuary after the remnants of clothing had been removed and laid out on a table. They were stained and partially rotted, and they had an air of squalor despite the mortuary lights.
The old woman turned pale, but shook her head, perhaps a little too vigorously. She looked at Cooper, then out of the window.
‘No, they mean nothing to me.’
‘One more thing,’ said Cooper, ‘and then I’ll get out of your way. Could you tell me what doctor your daughter went to?’
Mrs Gill breathed an audible sigh of relief. Now she was on safer ground, and she didn’t question why Cooper wanted to know such information.
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‘Doctor? Well, the same one as me. Crown House Surgery, here in Edendale.’
‘And a dentist?’
‘Moorhouse’s in Bargate. He’s NHS, so you have to go for a check-up every six months or you get kicked off his list. Audrey always went regularly. She was a nurse - she knew about looking after her health.’
Cooper smiled as he gathered the photographs together. ‘I bet she took regular exercise, too.’
Mrs Gill stood and gazed out of the windows as she waited for him to leave.
‘She swam as often as she could,’ she said. ‘Audrey competed in the county championships when she was a youngster. Her brother was a good swimmer, too - this is his child I’m looking after.’
‘Audrey also has a sister, doesn’t she?’
‘Oh, her. She doesn’t live around here any more.’
There was something about the way Mrs Gill said ‘her’ that reminded Cooper of Tom Jarvis, as though there was a name that mustn’t be spoken. But there had been a gruff affection in Jarvis’s voice when he referred to his wife. There was none in Mrs Gill’s when she spoke of her daughter.
‘Has there been some kind of rift in the family?’
