Disordered Minds

'Only after we'd stopped it. Howard kept pestering me about Cill, so I told him to fuck off and he went whining to his gran. Next thing I knew, Grace was on our doorstep wanting to know what was going on, and Mum sussed the whole thing in half a second flat. She gave Grace a right drubbing, told her she was lucky she wasn't going to report her for harboring truants just so her useless grandson could drool over a couple of teenagers.'

It was like the pieces of a jigsaw slotting together. Every snippet of information that Sasha had been given, directly or indirecdy, was finding its place. She pondered for a moment. 'What was your father doing while you and your mother were at the police station?' she asked.

'No idea. Sleeping probably. He'd been at work all night.'

'Was he in the house when you got back?'

'I presume so. We had to keep our voices down on Saturday mornings, and I don't recall that day being different.' She paused. 'He was there in the afternoon. I remember watching Grandstand with him, because he kept talking over it to ask me what the police had said.'

'Where was your mother?'

Louise took a drag of her cigarette. 'No idea,' she said, with an amused smile. 'Probably round at Grace's giving her another bollocking.'

'Do you know that for a fact?'

'Of course not!' she said disparagingly. 'The only facts I know are that Cill was there on the Saturday morning and was gone by the time the police found Grace's body.'

'What about the Tuesday evening?'

'I didn't see her, but it doesn't mean she wasn't there.' Another teasing smile. 'Maybe she was upstairs, slashing at poor old Grace.'

'Unlikely,' said Sasha. 'Her fingerprints weren't found anywhere in the house.'

'Jesus!' Louise said with an abrupt return to scorn. 'It wasn't a serious suggestion. How the hell would I know where she was? I kept my mouth shut because the folks got twitched when the silly bitch was still missing on the Monday. Maybe one of them went round to see what was going on, but if they did, they didn't tell me ... and come the Friday, none of us fancied owning up to anything.'

'You must have thought about it, though. What do you think happened?'

'What does it matter what I think? What I know is, it was a fucking nightmare.'

'I'd be interested.'

Louise looked toward the door into the hall. 'All right,' she said abruptly. 'Howard went to Grace's on the Saturday afternoon, found Cill there, persuaded Grace she was mad to be hiding her and told her he'd take her home. Whatever happened after that wouldn't have been good, because Howard was a pervert. I'm guessing Cill wound him up by telling him about having sex with Roy, and he probably said he wanted it too. They got into a fight and she ended up dead.'

Sasha felt the same prickling sensation between her shoulders as she'd felt the first time she came to this house, but she forced herself not to look at the door. 'Why weren't they seen?'

'Because it was dark. If they'd left in daylight, everyone would've known Grace was involved.'

'Where did he put the body?'

'How would I know? Somewhere close to where he killed her, I guess. It depends where he took her. He lived down Colliton Way and there was a lot of waste ground at the back of it.'

'Her body would have been found.'

Louise shrugged. 'It's an industrial estate now, so maybe she ended up in someone's foundations. They were building the new Brackham & Wright's factory around that time, and Howard was always going on about it because they were putting in state-of-the-art automation and his mum was scared there'd be redundancies.'

So neat. Too neat? 'What happened then?'

Louise frowned. 'He went home.'

'No, I meant, what happened with Grace?'

'Howard took a carving knife to her. Had to've done. I expect she kept asking him why Cill hadn't gone home. She was on his back all the time to get himself a girl, but she wouldn't have wanted him having a go at a thirteen- year-old. She married a guy who was much older than her, so that's what she wanted for Howard ... someone motherly who'd give him confidence but wouldn't expect sex. It wasn't what he wanted. Sex was the only thing he ever thought about.' She smiled at Sasha's expression. 'Just because a person's disabled doesn't make them pleasant, you know. They were both bloody strange, and they both thought it was everyone else's fault they were lonely. They rowed about it all the time.'

Sasha pointedly returned to her notes. 'It's difficult to see when he could have done it, Mrs. Fletcher. His mother gave him an alibi for the Monday and Tuesday, but you say you saw blood on Grace's window on the Tuesday afternoon. That suggests someone else killed Grace.'

'Don't see why. What was to stop Howard doing it Monday night?'

'His mother alibied him. She said she was awake all night worrying about his job prospects.'

'You talking about Wynne?'

'Yes.'

'She was lying through her teeth.'

'The prosecution didn't think so. That's why they argued that Grace died on the Wednesday.'