'Not idle curiosity…'
'Not really. I knew her. I mean, we worked together. A while back. Lincolnshire.'
'Personal, then?'
'If you like.'
'What's your interest, Frank? I mean, exactly?'
'I'm not sure. Just wondering who was handling the investigation, how it was going?'
'Not my department, Frank. Not yet. Nothing breaks, they'll bring us in soon enough.'
'There's no one I could talk to, just informally?'
Framlingham seemed to hesitate. 'Let me have your number again, Frank, I'll get back to you.'
When he did, Elder was raking out the ash from the wood-burning stove, prior to setting it for the evening. Not quite dark, the light towards the sea was rimmed with pinkish red. The temperature seemed to have dropped some five degrees.
'I've spoken to the head of the Murder Squad,' Framlingham said. 'Explained the situation. He gave me the name of one of his DCIs. Shields. Karen Shields. Mean anything to you?'
'Can't say that it does.'
'Bumped up to chief inspector a year or so back. Usual bleating by a few, positive discrimination, you know how it goes.'
'You mean because she's a woman?'
'Because she's black.'
'I see.'
'You don't have a problem with that, Frank?'
'God, no.'
'Good.'
'Just as long as she's doing the job.'
'She is.'
'You think it would be okay for me to give her a call?'
'You could try. Say you've had a word with me first, if you think it'll help. If she thinks you might have something useful to throw into the pot, background, that sort of thing, she might be willing to talk.'
'It was a long time ago, Robert.'
'Well, you'll know best. But here's her office number anyhow.'
Elder found a pen and wrote it on the back of his hand.
'And Frank…'
'Yes?'
'You know what I'm going to say, don't you? Any time you do change your mind…'
'Thanks for the number, Robert,' Elder said.
Karen could feel things slipping irrevocably away.
What Vanessa had told them about Maddy's fears that she was being spied upon suggested strongly that her attacker was someone who knew her, knew her well. And Terry Patrick had seemed the obvious candidate. But Patrick's alibis for the night in question had proved near-perfect. Tina aside, five other witnesses were prepared to swear he was in North Wales and not in London.
Stone wall: try again.
So far Forensics had given them little or nothing. No skin beneath the victim's fingernails from where Maddy had sought to fight off her attacker, no saliva, no semen; what resembled a snail's slow trail across her body had proved to be exactly that. The only blood was Maddy's own. All the indications were that she had been raped, penetration had certainly taken place; a condom had presumably been used though one had not had been found, discarded, at or near the scene. Shoe prints and boot prints were too confused, too partial to be of any direct use. Of any possible weapon there was no sign.
The other members of Maddy's yoga class had all been interviewed; Maddy had chatted to one or two of the class before the session started, a few more once it was over, nothing consequential. She had been among the last to leave. The cafe in the centre had closed at seven and there had been few other people still on the premises, all of them tracked down and spoken to. Occupants of the properties backing on to the centre had been canvassed; appeals made for anyone who might have been using the lane or the old railway line as a cut-through or to walk their dogs to come forward.
The caretaker remembered seeing someone, almost certainly Maddy, heading off along the lane towards Crouch Hill, the opposite direction to the one she would have taken if she were going directly home. But then Crouch Hill would have quickly led her down to the Broadway and bars, restaurants and cafes aplenty, where she could either have been meeting someone by arrangement or meaning to have supper or a drink alone. Except that none of the waiters or bar staff recognised Maddy as having been amongst their customers that evening.
So had she been attacked almost immediately after leaving the centre – risky, with others still presumably within earshot – or had she, indeed, walked down to the Broadway and later returned by the same route? And was her attacker some stalker, as yet unknown, someone waiting for her, out there amongst the shadows, waiting for his chance? Or had it been a random act, Maddy's misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Too many questions still unanswered.
'Phone, ma'am,' said one of the office staff, interrupting her train of thought. 'For you.'
'Who is it?'
'A Frank Elder? He's called several times before. Something about Maddy Birch, apparently.'
Karen sighed. It was way past seven already. Staff pulling in overtime. What she wanted was to go home, open a bottle of red and drink the first glass while she soaked in a hot bath.
'Okay.'
Karen perched on the end of a desk, one foot resting on the seat of a chair. Across the room she could see Lee Furness slowly scrolling down through a list of names on the computer.
'Hello, this is DCI Shields.'
'Frank Elder.'
'I believe you've got some information about Maddy Birch.'
'Not information exactly.'
'What then?'
'I worked with her. Maddy. In Lincolnshire.'
'How long ago?'
A pause. 'Eighty-seven, eighty-eight.'
'And you were what? Close? Close colleagues? What?'
'Close, I don't know. Not really. We worked together, that's all. I was just wondering how things were going. The investigation.'
'How things are going? What do you think this is? Crimewatch?'
'I'm sorry, I was given your name…'
'Look, maybe you should talk to the press office. If anyone. Just hold on and I'll get you transferred.'
'No, it's okay. It doesn't matter. I'm sorry to have taken your time.'
Karen heard a click as the phone was replaced.
Just about the last thing she needed, some old geezer with too much time on his hands.
13
'Bloody shame,' Linda Mills had said, when she heard of Maddy's death.
'Shocking,' Trevor Ashley agreed.
'Now we'll never get the chance to talk to her again.'
