Cry of the Children (15 page)

Bert said gently, ‘You know the girl's name, Julie. That makes it easier for us. Is that because you've heard other people talking about this, or did the police lady mention the name to you?'

The forehead puckered in the effort that was now familiar to them. ‘I knew Lucy. She came to our store. She talked to me. Her mum said she shouldn't.'

Those few words summarized her present life. Hook strove to keep his tone even as he tried to confirm the picture for himself. ‘You knew Lucy before Saturday, then. And she knew you.'

‘That's right. I talk to a lot of the children at the supermarket. I like children, you see, and they like seeing what I do at Tesco's. They get bored, the little ones, and they like it when one of the workers talks to them.'

It was the first time he had heard anyone who was a shelf-stacker at the supermarket pronounce that word ‘worker' with genuine pride. Someone at the store had done a great job here. ‘Did you see Lucy at the fairground on Saturday night?'

‘Yes. I said hello to her whilst she was holding on to her dad at the shooting range. He won her a little doll. I went away then, though, because I thought he wouldn't want me speaking to her.'

It wasn't Lucy's dad, of course. It was Matt Boyd who'd won the doll for her. But there was no point in troubling Julie Foster with that now. Bert thought of that doll bagged up in CID, with a muddy footprint across its face, and said fearfully, ‘I expect you'd have liked a doll like that for yourself, wouldn't you?'

The big, moon-like, revealing face looked at him in puzzlement. ‘No. Why would I want that? It was only a little rag doll. Fine for a kid like Lucy, but why would I want one? I haven't got any kids to give it to. I don't even have nieces and nephews like some, you know.'

‘No. Silly of me to ask, wasn't it? But Lucy liked her dolly, didn't she?'

‘Oh, yes. She was holding it tight when she was riding in her bus on the little roundabout. She waved at me with the dolly's arm. She looked very happy.'

Now, at last, Hook did glance at Lambert. Julie Foster caught the look and studied first one and then the other of the men's faces. Hook said heavily. ‘You were waiting for Lucy and her dolly when that ride stopped, weren't you, Julie? By the wood at the side of the common.'

‘No. No, you've got that wrong, mister. I went away after I'd waved to her. Her dad was there and I didn't want him telling me to fuck off. They do that, you know.'

‘You wouldn't tell me lies, would you, Julie? It's much better for you to tell us the truth now than to have other people tell it for you later. That's what happened when you took Ellie, wasn't it? We need to know now if you took Lucy away and things went wrong for you.'

‘I didn't take her and things didn't go wrong. I waved to her with her dolly. Then I left them to it.' The big face set into a sullen immobility, as blank and inscrutable as a door shut upon their enquiries.

‘You don't have your own transport, do you, Julie?'

Hook was expecting a routine negative, which would help to counteract the suspicion that had leapt into their minds with the discovery that she had known Lucy Gibson before the happenings of Saturday night. But she stood up, moved heavily across the room and opened the top drawer in the scratched chest. She handed them a well-fingered envelope which she had obviously been asked to produce many times before. It contained the log book, insurance and MOT certificate of a Ford Fiesta, first registered eleven years previously. Julie Foster said proudly, ‘That's my transport. One or two scratches, but she runs real smooth. She's a little belter. Lad I work with sold it to me. It was his gran's old car. Everything's in order. You check through it all.'

Hook looked dully through the different sheets. ‘It's all in order, yes. Did you have this car with you at the fairground on Saturday?'

‘Yeah, I did. Parked at the edge of the common. I went for a drive, you see. I like doing that at night, when there's no one to see me. I don't speed, though.' She looked suddenly alarmed, as if it was important that she convinced them of that.

‘I'm sure you don't. But are you sure you didn't take Lucy for a ride with you?'

‘Course I'm sure. I'm not daft, you know, so don't you go telling anyone I am.' The sudden, alarming flash of temper showed how big Julie Foster might be dangerous if she felt threatened.

‘So who do you think it was who took Lucy away?'

But she had closed up on them now. She said only, ‘You should ask her dad, shouldn't you? He was with her when she was on the roundabout, not me.'

They had asked Matt Boyd, the man Julie had assumed was Lucy's dad. And they had asked her real dad, too. And the burly thug who had taken her fare on the roundabout whilst trying to look up her skirt. And the man who had watched her on her playing field and at the school gates. And now they were asking this strange, guileless woman whose very artlessness might be her most dangerous quality.

A
nthea Gibson did what the police family liaison officer advised. She avoided the ordeal of identifying the body herself. Her sister Lisa did that for her. Then Anthea left the house in Oldford, which seemed now so empty and silent, and went to stay with Lisa in Gloucester.

Lisa lived quite close to the modern shopping centre of the ancient city. It was a busy place, and Anthea was glad of that. It was helpful to have noise and bustle and lots of people who didn't know her and weren't interested in her. The death that had taken over her life wasn't important to these people, and their lack of interest seemed not cruel but helpful. It bore out the old cliché, which Lisa had used at least twice to her, that life must go on. It was going on all around her in Gloucester, whether she liked it or not.

But Anthea found that she could not exist for long in this strange half-world. It was no more than a substitute for her real life. It was like watching fish swimming past in a monster tank, interesting for a while but not involving you. After a certain time, it wasn't enough. It was good of Lisa to have her and look after her and be anxious for her. This time might bring them closer together, because she wouldn't forget her sister's kindness.

But Lisa was five years older than Anthea and they'd never been especially close. And Lisa had a husband who did not know what to say to Anthea. She also had two boisterous children of her own. Anthea tried to enjoy her nephews, but they reminded her too much of Lucy who was gone. She kept finding herself biting her lip and unable to speak to the boys.

Two nights in Lisa's pleasant modern house were enough for her. She said on Tuesday morning, ‘I need to get back home. I've got to face up to things some time, haven't I?'

‘But not yet,' said Lisa firmly. ‘You need more time before you go back to an empty house. And you know you're welcome to stay here as long as you like.'

‘That's good of you, but you have your own lives to get on with.' She thought of those noisy boys, who laughed with each other and fought with each other by turns, who had already moved on, so that they now had to be reminded by their mother of Anthea's tragic situation. They were at school now and she wanted to be gone before they were back in the house. ‘There's a bus to Oldford at eleven fifteen. I'm going to get myself on to that and off home. I'll ring you tonight.'

Lisa protested and said it was too soon, but Anthea caught a measure of relief in her sister's voice. She said determinedly, ‘I'll need to make contact with Lloyd's Chemists in Oldford. They won't keep my job open for ever.'

That wasn't true, because the pharmacist had told her to be away for as long as she needed from the shop in Oldford. You needed to have a good measure of recovery before you could cope with the steady stream of sympathy that would come across the counter at you as you served customers in the busy little shop. Anthea only did that for twelve hours a week, but she was conscious in her misery that she was going to need those hours more than ever now if she was to carry on with her life.

The bus took a winding route from Gloucester, so that it could call at numerous villages en route, but today the journey she had always found tedious passed too quickly for her. A pale yellow sunshine was falling low over the hedges. People on the bus spoke of how the hour would go off at the weekend and how it always felt like winter when that happened. Anthea managed to smile a weak agreement when the woman sitting next to her talked about it soon being dark before five o'clock. Anthea was faceless on this bus. No one knew of her tragedy. She wanted to hug that anonymity about her and keep it as a protective blanket for much longer.

She stood for a moment with key in hand at her front door. She had to steel herself to enter the unremarkable house, which was suddenly full of echoes and memories. There were unwashed dishes in the sink, which shocked her. She had never done that before; only sluts did that. The thought allowed her a small smile at her own behaviour, at the thought of her sluttishness. Sluts could never be at the centre of tragedy.

She washed those dishes with brisk efficiency, then dragged the vacuum cleaner from its cupboard and used it vigorously through the whole house. She did not stop even at Lucy's bedroom, keeping her eyes resolutely upon the carpet as she moved the roaring cleaner industriously back and forth. She decided that she wouldn't let this room become a shrine. Then she told herself that it was much too early to be entertaining thoughts like that.

It was almost dark by the time she allowed herself to sit down. She made herself a cup of tea and tried to read the morning paper she'd brought with her from Gloucester. She didn't feel at all hungry. She'd make herself something to eat later. She'd got used to eating early in this kitchen with Lucy, so that her daughter could digest her tea before her bedtime story. There was no need for that now. She slapped her palm hard against the paper for allowing herself to think like that. It made a sound like a pistol shot. She tried to find some interest in the latest
Daily Express
speculations about the royals.

When the bell rang, she didn't want to go to the door. She couldn't face the latest well-meant bout of sympathy, still less the neighbourly rants about what they would do to whoever had done this awful thing. But the light was on and the visitor would know she was in. The bell rang again. Better face the caller and get rid of her as quickly as she could. It was sure to be a woman.

Anthea paused in the hall, took a long deep breath, put on her public face and opened the door. She had a bigger shock than she'd expected.

Matt Boyd cringed in front of her, as if he feared that she would hit him. He gulped and said, ‘May I come in?' And then, before she could answer him, he tumbled out more words, ‘If you want me to go away, I'll understand. Maybe it's too soon.'

Christine Lambert was feeling the strain of the case. She had been in school today, teaching ten-year-olds in the part-time job she normally found so stimulating. But the tragedy of that other, younger child, who had attended school no more than six miles away, fell over the staffroom exchanges that Christine normally so enjoyed.

Everyone expected that as the wife of the local celebrity, John Lambert, she would know details of this melodrama which they could take and relate to others. It seemed to Christine that everyone thought the grisly glamour of death clung about her and was available to those who chose to carry chunks of it away. Even the classroom seemed to her less lively than usual on this autumn afternoon. The boys and girls sitting attentively in front of her appeared to think that the wife of Chief Superintendent Lambert must surely bring something of the weekend's tragic event into their quiet country school.

She confided some of this to her husband, who for once seemed anxious to talk about the case. Perhaps John thought he could lighten the burden of a child's death by talking to a woman who moved among young people easily and knowledgeably. After a few minutes, Christine realized that this was the reason for John's introduction of the subject. He was troubled and baffled by the death of Lucy Gibson and felt that because his wife had always known more about children and been happier with them than he was, she might have some telling idea to contribute, which he and his team had not yet explored.

Christine didn't mind that, though she feared that when it came to the abnormal adults who must surely be involved in this, she knew much less than John. She said as much when he asked for her thoughts. ‘I might know more about children than you do, though you underestimate yourself – you were always very good with our two when there was a crisis. But this isn't about children, is it? It's about some very evil or some very disturbed adult. You've met far more people like that than I have.'

She was right, of course; John knew that. For years he had brought none of his work home with him, so that Christine had known nothing about the central parts of her husband's life. Now he felt guilty about bringing this most disturbing of crimes into the house with him. Christine seemed far more vulnerable to him than she did to herself.

Sturdy common sense wasn't a protection against everything, and least of all against dark happenings like this. He said sadly, ‘I think whoever killed Lucy Gibson must be both evil and disturbed. But that can't be my concern. My duty is to bring in whoever did this and let the law and the psychiatrists decide the rest. Whether he or she ends up in a high-security prison or in Broadmoor will be decided by others, not by me, thank the Lord.'

He wondered why he still thanked that Lord he no longer believed in. Force of habit? Or touching wood? Christine felt his anguish; when you had lived with someone for so many years, not everything needed to be voiced. She said softly, ‘You said “he or she”. Is that just your normal caution? Everyone who's spoken to me has assumed your killer is male.'