A Shred of Evidence (7 page)

He was beginning to get used to calling him Lloyd; at first he’d felt a bit as though he were addressing the butler. But Lloyd’s first name was of such awfulness that no one except Judy knew it, and she had had to work it out from inadvertent clues.

Work, he told himself sternly, as the clock moved on to quarter past ten. Work, or you’ll be here until midnight. But maybe something would happen out there in the real world, something that he could hardly ignore in favour of paperwork. A murder would be a favourite. That would be a good enough excuse even for DI Hill.

Colin finally found the key, and got into the car, starting the engine. His whole body shook, and he wasn’t sure he could drive, not like this. But he was late already, and he couldn’t stay here for ever.

Still breathing heavily, he put the car in gear. His hands
were still shaking, but he seemed to have got control of his legs at last.

He had to get home. He had said ten o’clock, and it was after that now. Erica would be worried, even if he was only a few minutes late. Colin’s punctuality was obsessive, he knew that. Everything about him was obsessive, and always had been.

Time-keeping, showering; it wasn’t the other members of staff who were scared of sweat, it was him. He showered constantly, in case he smelled, whether he’d been exerting himself or not. He reached into the glove compartment, unzipped his tracksuit top and sprayed himself with more deodorant as he sat there.

He was like that about everything he did. All the time. He wanted to stop, but he couldn’t—it was always like that. Erica just laughed at him about the showers, but she didn’t really know what he was like, what he had been going through. She knew their marriage had been suffering, though. She just didn’t know why.

His new obsession. Erica didn’t believe he had been running; she had got into conversation with a coach at an athletics meeting and he had told her what sort of training was needed if you wanted to run long-distance races. It didn’t, of course, make any sense when she compared it to what he was doing.

Now he was going to have to go home in this state and she would want explanations. He drove slowly out of his parking space and along the school drive to the rear gate, his heart still hammering painfully, his temples throbbing.

Patrick drove home, trying to work out how much damage limitation was going to be possible.

That girl had seen him; there had been no point in trying to go back. A second later and he would have been in the darkness of the depot; as it was, he had been in the well-lit alley. She had seen him, and he had seen her.

A girl, a pupil of Oakland School, her eyes wide with apprehension. Half the bloody school must have been on Ash Road Green tonight, he thought sourly.

He had had to do something, and yet he hadn’t been able to do anything useful, not with her there. In the end, he had walked across to the depot, trying to look as though he had some business there, and had gone to the doorway, pretending to try an obviously locked door to an obviously dark building. But he was Irish; she would have put that down to Mickness, he hoped.

He had put the shoes down and turned, then walked quickly back up the footpath to the road. He hadn’t stopped until he had got to the car; he had looked back, then, and she had been at the top of the path, watching him curiously. Then she had walked quickly away along Ash Road, towards the bus stop.

He had got into the car and driven away in the opposite direction, rehearsing the lies he was going to have to tell Victoria.

He didn’t know the girl, but the chances were that she had recognized him. He just had to keep his head, that was all. He just had to keep his head, and hope that the girl wasn’t too good at putting two and two together. Trouble was, Oakland didn’t
go in much for pupils who couldn’t do simple arithmetic, not now that they had an image to maintain.

Victoria was watching television when he got in; she didn’t acknowledge his presence.

“Sorry, love,” he said. “I got tied up.”

“By whom?” she asked drily as he got between her and the TV.

Patrick smiled. “Ah, nothing like that,” he said. “I offered to fix Colin Cochrane’s car, that’s all.”

Victoria looked pointedly at the clock, got up, and went into the kitchen, where she proceeded to fill the kettle, as noisily as she could.

Patrick went in after her. “Swear to God,” he said. “You can ask Colin, if you like.”

“And fixing his car took until ten o’clock, did it?”

Patrick nodded, shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “About that. It was harder than I thought.” He put his arms around her as she stood waiting for the kettle to boil, his chin on her shoulder. “Ask him,” he said. “I was mending his car.”

She turned. “And then what, Patrick?” she asked. “Did you take it home for him? Pop in to see Mrs. Cochrane?”

Patrick’s eyebrows rose. “What’s Mrs. Cochrane got to do with anything?” he asked.

“I’ve heard all about you and Erica Cochrane,” said Victoria.

Patrick laughed. “Sure, what’s there to hear about me and Erica Cochrane?” he asked.

“You were never away from there during the summer, or so I was told today.” She looked away from him. “I nearly didn’t come here,” she said. “You persuaded me. You were never going to be unfaithful again—you had learned your lesson, you were a changed man. And all the time you were sleeping with Erica Cochrane, weren’t you?”

“What?” said Patrick. He put his hand to her chin, and turned her face to his. “Who’s been telling you that?” he asked in truly injured innocence. He had done nothing with Erica Cochrane during the summer, though it hadn’t been for the want of trying.

“A friend of hers that I met today,” she said. “Dropping hints
about what a great friend of the Cochranes you were, and how you were company for Erica while Colin was away.”

“I am a friend of the Cochranes,” said Patrick. “But there was nothing going on between me and her. And I think I know the friend you mean—she’s started more rumours than any ministry of propaganda ever did.”

“But you were there when he was away at athletics meetings and things,” said Victoria. “Weren’t you?”

“Sometimes,” said Patrick. “But he was there as often as not. Erica would make a meal for me now and then, that’s all. There was nothing going on, Victoria. I swear to God.” It had been so long since he’d told the truth that he had almost forgotten how; he embellished it now. “The man’s a friend of mine, for God’s sake,” he added, as though that made the slightest difference.

“Then where were you tonight?” she said.

“I’ve told you. Mending Colin’s car.”

She didn’t look convinced.

Patrick gave her a cuddle. “If I’d been with some woman, I’d hardly come up with a lame excuse like that, would I?” he said.

Victoria smiled. “No,” she said. “You’re usually more inventive.”

He’d usually had some time to think up a story; tonight hadn’t been planned. He kissed her. “I’m not daft,” he said. “I know if I start all that again you’ll leave me.”

“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

“I’m not going to risk that, am I?”

They kissed again, she made a nice cup of tea, and Patrick convinced her, not for the first time, that he was a reformed character who would never again have a bit on the side.

He had told his class this morning that he was a consummate liar, and it was no more than the truth; he believed the lies as he spoke them. And when he was reassuring Victoria, he really did believe what he was saying; he believed that he had done nothing at all that night to worry her or anyone else.

But he had, of course, and there would be a reckoning, one way or the other.

* * *

The call had been the answer to Tom’s prayer. A body on Ash Road Green took precedence over paperwork, even in his inspector’s book.

He was there now, feeling just a touch guilty about his wish coming true; something superstitious at the back of his mind made him feel that he had somehow caused it to happen.

The duty inspector had cordoned off the children’s playground. Tom had asked him to seal off the depot area too. There were tyre marks, rubber on the paved surface down by the depot that seemed out of place where all you should have was the odd van picking up equipment and more or less obeying the five-miles-an-hour limit on the service road. It looked as though someone had shot out of there at speed. And up on the main road there were skid marks in the nearside lane, where the service road met it.

Joyriders? The depot courtyard was a good area for showing off your handbrake turns, Tom supposed. If so, did one of them get overexcited and work off his excess energy on the victim?

The lady whose dog had found her was still too upset to be of much use. She had stumbled away from the body, and run up the overgrown embankment to the phone. She was a mess; all that anyone had got so far was that her name was Cochrane, and that the dog’s name, of all things, was Sherlock. Then she had started to cry almost helplessly when Tom had tried to talk to her. A WPC was with her now, trying to calm her down.

Not a nice thing for your dog to turn up, Tom thought. Not a nice thing at all. A young woman, beaten, strangled, probably raped; her blouse was unbuttoned, her skirt pulled up to her waist, and she had nothing on underneath.

Tom squatted down and shone his torch into the concrete pipe where the top half of the body lay, and sniffed. He could still smell it. Something not right, something that didn’t belong. He shook his head, and stood up. He knew that smell, but he couldn’t place it. A perfume of some sort, but it didn’t seem right.

On one level, he was as shocked as the next man, as shocked as Mrs. Cochrane, even, at the brutality, the horror of it all. On
another, he was a little like the dog, who sat beside his dishevelled mistress, tail wagging, tongue out, pleased that his discovery had produced all this activity. Finding people was a bloodhound’s job, he was saying joyously, and that’s what he had just done.

Finding their killers was a policeman’s job, and Tom’s tail was wagging too. The duty inspector had got two teams doing house-to-house along Ash Road before it got too late; they had arranged for scene-of-crime officers to come, set the wheels in motion. Now, they needed something to go on.

“What’s the score, Tom?”

He turned to see acting Chief Inspector Hill coming towards him along the lines of ribbon.

“Lights will be here any minute,” said Tom. “If it means anything, I think a car came out of the service road going very fast,” he said. “I think someone might have had to skid to avoid him.”

“We can appeal for the drivers to come forward,” said Judy, making a note. “At least eliminate them if nothing else.”

“And the doctor’s on his way to confirm death. She’s in there.” He nodded towards the big section of concrete pipe that sat half embedded in the grass, part of the adventure playground. Only the girl’s legs were visible in the dim light from the street-lamps.

Judy went over and bent down. “Can’t see a thing,” she said, and took his torch, shining it into the pipe. She straightened up, swallowing a little, looking, it had to be said, even less happy than she usually did about dead bodies. “Do we know her name?” she asked.

“Not yet,” said Tom, and frowned. This body was having a hell of an effect on everyone; it was bad, but he’d seen worse, and so had she. Maybe he was missing something. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I think she was on my bus tonight,” said Judy. “She’s younger than she looks, Tom. She’s a schoolgirl. The others called her Nat.”

That would be a bit hard to take, thought Tom. It was difficult to know what to say, really. You could hardly offer your
condolences, but he knew how she must feel. “Are you sure?” he said. After all, she had just glimpsed someone on a bus. Teenage girls were much of a muchness, really.

“Yes, I’m sure. Sure enough to get the head teacher here, if possible.” She got brisk and efficient again. “Have we found her underwear?” she asked. “Or her shoes?”

“Not yet,” said Tom. “She’s got her tights round her neck, though,” he added, with a sudden surge of outrage, now that the body had a name, an identity, however vague, and now that he knew she was little more than a child. “We’ve not found anything else.” He glanced over to where Mrs. Cochrane sat. “That’s the lady who found her,” he said. “Beside the smug bloodhound. I haven’t been able to get any sense out of her so far—she was too shocked.”

“Right—let’s go and talk to her now,” Judy said as the police surgeon arrived and disappeared into the concrete pipe.

Mrs. Cochrane was calm now; she apologized for breaking down, after Tom had introduced Judy.

“Nothing to apologize for,” said Tom. “It must have been a very nasty shock. Do you want the doctor to have a look at your leg?”

“Oh, no—it’s just a scratch.” She examined the graze through her torn and laddered tights. “I didn’t know if she was dead,” she told Judy. “Sherry found her, and I couldn’t see into the pipe. I was going to ring for an ambulance. I fell when I went up there. I should have used the road, but all I could think of was getting to the phone box as fast as I could.”

“If you’re sure you’re all right,” said Judy. “I’m afraid we have to ask you some questions.”

“Yes, of course,” she said.

“Did you see a car, Mrs. Cochrane?” Tom asked. “Or hear one, maybe?”

“A car?” She shook her head. “No,” she said firmly.

Pity. But it added up. Joyriders, kids watching the fun and games, getting themselves all hyped up. Car goes, crowd goes. Just the girl and some youth left, out of his mind on drugs or booze or both.

“But the thing is …” she said, “I saw a girl just before.” She
looked at Tom, her face drawn. “It can’t be her,” she said. “It can’t be. I saw her not twenty minutes before Sherlock—” She broke off.

“Can you describe the girl you saw?”

“I know her, sort of. She goes to Oakland School. I can’t remember her name—it’s Russian, I think. She has long blond hair, and she was wearing—”

She broke off again as Tom glanced at Judy.

“It is her, isn’t it?” she said, dully. “I thought … the skirt. It looked the same. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”