Without a Trace (7 page)

‘Cassie used to take Petal out in the woods to find wood for the fire,’ Molly said. ‘They used to follow animal tracks. I went with them several times, but Petal hated being scratched. I don’t think she’d flee into thick undergrowth, not even if she was scared. She’d have run for the road.’

‘I think you’re right there,’ Simon agreed. ‘From what I’ve seen of Petal, I’d agree entirely.’

‘You knew her and Cassie then?’ Molly asked.

Simon nodded. ‘I like walking, and I often do a circular walk, coming back past Stone Cottage. Cassie always spoke to me, offered me a drink or whatever. I stayed for supper with them once.’

Molly thought it a little odd that Cassie had never mentioned him. Simon Fairweather was most definitely the kind of man you would mention meeting.

‘Did you go to the police and tell them that?’

He looked startled, his grey eyes widening. ‘No. Well, why would I? I didn’t have a relationship with Cassie, it was only the odd chat.’

‘But you must have formed an opinion about her, picked up little snippets that might be useful to the police?’

He looked doubtful about that, and it crossed Molly’s mind that he may have had a bit of a fling with Cassie. She was very easy about sex. Just a couple of months ago she’d cheerfully admitted to having sex in a field with a man she’d met an hour before in the library.

‘Don’t worry. It was a one-off.’ Cassie had laughed at her friend’s shocked expression. ‘He didn’t have a clue, and I didn’t like him enough to coach him.’

Remembering that admission made Molly wonder if she should tell the police about it; she didn’t want to portray Cassie in a bad way but that man could be her killer.

‘I think you ought to talk to the police, Simon,’ she said. ‘I keep remembering little things that may or may not be important. One thing I was just reminded of is a bit embarrassing, but I think I ought to pass it on.’

‘Someone she slept with?’ he asked.

‘Umm …’ Molly hung her head.

‘I didn’t sleep with her,’ Simon said. ‘I liked her, but that was all.’

Molly felt she believed him. ‘What did you talk to her about?’

Simon smiled. His eyes were very twinkly and she noticed he had lovely full lips. ‘About books, mostly. I write, you see, got my first book published last year. Cassie wanted to know all about it.’

Molly remembered then that Cassie
had
said she met a man she talked about books to. For some reason, Molly had assumed he was elderly; she certainly hadn’t considered that it could be the writer so many women in the village gossiped about. ‘Tell me about it. What kind of book is it?’

‘It’s a thriller called “Shadows”. It didn’t exactly set the world alight, but I’m just doing the final editing on a second one, which I hope might.’

Molly liked the light way he spoke; he didn’t seem to take himself too seriously.

They set off on the search again then, circling round an hour later so that they came back to Stone Cottage soon after one. The other search parties arrived back a short while later, everyone looking very wet and weary. DI Girling got them to gather round so he could speak to them.

‘We’ve covered a vast area this morning, far further than it would be possible for a six-year-old to walk, and we have found nothing to prove that Petal has been in that area. Thank you all for your help, and, although I know many of you were intending to continue searching until Petal is found, we need to stop for now while I reconsider what needs to be done. We will call on you should we need to conduct another search.’

Simon looked at Molly, and shrugged. ‘He’s right. She couldn’t have walked beyond the area we searched.’

‘Then that means she was taken,’ Molly said, tears springing involuntarily to her eyes. ‘I just wish there was something more I could do.’

Simon reached out and put his hand on her arm in sympathy. ‘Me, too,’ he agreed. ‘Will you introduce me to one of the cops you know so I can tell them I knew Cassie a bit?’

‘I’ll take you to George Walsh,’ she agreed. ‘He interviewed me last night, and he’s a good sort.’

George Walsh had been in a different group to them. When she went over to speak to him he took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. Molly introduced Simon, explaining that he’d known Cassie.

‘I think you might be the right people to help out the DI,’ George said. ‘Just wait here while I have a word with him. I know the others are going to get the coach back to the village, but someone will run you back down later.’

‘What do we know that might help the DI?’ Simon asked Molly as PC Walsh walked away.

‘Just stuff Cassie told us, I suppose, but I could murder a cup of tea, so I hope he doesn’t keep us long,’ she replied.

After speaking to DI Girling, PC Walsh left with the others, walking up the track to the lane and the waiting coach. DI Girling came over to Molly and Simon.

‘I hear you both knew Cassie quite well and have been in her home. PC Walsh thought you could help by looking around it and seeing if you notice anything missing, something that wouldn’t normally be there, or anything that doesn’t seem right. Miss Heywood, I believe you were very close to
Miss March and her daughter, so maybe you could tell if any clothes or toys have been taken?’

Molly was very apprehensive as she stepped into Stone Cottage. Cassie’s body had been taken away, but the bloodstain on the floor by the fireplace was still there and immediately brought back all the shock, fear and revulsion she’d felt when she found Cassie the previous day.

Simon and DI Girling stayed downstairs looking around, and Molly went upstairs. She pulled out the drawers in the chest next to Petal’s bed first.

As neither Cassie nor Petal had a great many clothes, it didn’t take long to go through them. She checked the laundry basket, too, to make sure that anything she thought was missing wasn’t in there.

‘I’d say some underwear, socks and a red cardigan has been taken,’ Molly said to DI Girling when she’d finished and was walking back down the stairs. ‘Also, a red-and-white spotted dress with short sleeves, and I can’t see Petal’s red shorts anywhere, so my guess is that she was wearing those, ready to change into her Britannia costume. Are her yellow raincoat and wellingtons still here?’

‘I haven’t seen them,’ the policeman responded. ‘There’s a scruffy, off-white adult raincoat on the hook by the back door. Is that Miss March’s?’

‘Yes, and Petal’s yellow coat is usually next to it. So she must be wearing that. It doesn’t look like Petal ran out of here in fright, does it? No six-year-old picks up a change of clothing, including clean socks, do they? I doubt Petal would even think to put on her coat.’

‘Umm! Yes, you’re right there,’ DI Girling said thoughtfully. He took a notebook from his pocket and wrote down the
items she’d identified as missing. ‘Can you think of anything else that might be missing?’

‘I can’t see her toy dog, a floppy, brown-and-white thing, she used to cuddle it when she was tired, or if you read to her. Cassie never let her take it to the shops or anywhere like that, it had to stay on her bed.’

Simon came over to Molly. ‘Did you see Cassie’s diary up there?’

‘No, it wasn’t there,’ she said.

Simon looked at DI Girling. ‘Have the police already found it and taken it away?’

DI Girling looked suddenly more animated. ‘There was no diary on the list of items which were taken away. What was it like?’

‘Big, seven by ten inches, I’d say, a dark-blue leather cover with a metal clasp. It was a five-year one, and Cassie said she wrote it up every day.’

‘Where did she keep it?’ DI Girling asked.

‘I saw it on the table when I came for a meal one evening,’ Simon said.

‘It was mostly on the dresser,’ Molly said, going over to it and looking in the drawer. ‘Cassie told me that maybe she’d use it one day as a basis to write a book.’

‘She said that to me, too.’ Simon nodded. ‘We used to talk a lot about writing when I came by. She asked me how you know where to begin a book, and whether it’s better to write in the first person or the third.’

‘Did she let you read any of the diary?’ DI Girling asked Simon.

‘Oh no, she hated the idea of anyone looking at it,’ Simon said firmly. ‘She struck me as a very private person. She said
once that, if she did ever write a book, the most daunting thing for her would be getting someone to read it when she’d finished to give a critique.’

DI Girling turned to Molly. ‘Did she say anything about her diary to you?’

‘Only that writing down what happened to her helped her rationalize things. She said she wrote down stuff like people being nasty to her because she was an unmarried mother with a mixed race child. She said that seeing it on the page made it clear to her that they were ignorant and bigoted, and they were to be pitied. She claimed that stopped her hurting.’

DI Girling looked a bit bemused at that. ‘She kind of put her head on the chopping block coming to live here in an all-white area, didn’t she?’ he said. ‘Now, if she’d gone to live in Bristol, no one would’ve turned a hair. Did she ever say why she came here?’

‘I got the idea she wanted to hide away,’ Simon said. ‘Did you get that idea, too, Molly?’

Molly nodded. ‘Yes, she was a bit of a hermit. She’d go into Bristol once a week on the bus, and in the school holidays she’d take Petal to Wells, or Bath, but the rest of the time she was just here in the cottage. She grew vegetables, she’d cook, knit and read. She didn’t even have a wireless.’

‘What did she live on? Did she ever say?’

‘Very little,’ Molly said. ‘She had to count every penny. She had a cleaning job in Bristol, and that’s why she went there every Thursday. She usually came into the shop for food after she got back, too.’

‘Did she tell you who she worked for?’

‘No, and I never asked,’ Molly said. ‘I did think it was funny that she dressed up to go there, though.’

‘What do you mean, “dressed up”?’

‘Well, she looked really smart, glamorous even: a tight skirt, her hair up and high heels. If I was doing a cleaning job, I’d go in my oldest clothes.’

‘Did you ask her about it?’

‘I teased her,’ Molly said. ‘I said she was the smartest cleaner I’d ever seen. She just laughed and said she had an overall and some plimsolls in her bag but she liked to make out she was going somewhere lovely.’

‘So she might have been lying and, in reality, she was meeting a lover who gave her money?’

Molly frowned. ‘Yes, I suppose she could’ve been, but she always looked awfully weary when she got back. Besides, if there had been a man, I think she’d have told me about him. She told me about the other men in her life.’

DI Girling looked long and hard at Molly, as if weighing up whether she was telling the truth. ‘Getting back to the diary, it’s very strange that it’s gone,’ he said, pulling cushions and the gaily coloured crocheted blanket from the sofa to look underneath them. ‘It suggests to me that the person who took Petal thought there might be something in it to incriminate them. A family member, perhaps. Petal’s father?’

‘But I don’t think Cassie had any family,’ Molly said. ‘As for Petal’s father, she said it had been a brief fling, over long before she knew she was going to have a baby, and she never saw him again. She added that she didn’t regret it, though, as Petal was the best thing that ever happened to her. And, really, if a black man had come to the village, someone would’ve seen him, wouldn’t they?’

DI Girling was silent for a moment, just standing there staring into space. Simon winked at Molly encouragingly.

‘You said it was a five-year diary?’ DI Girling said after a little while. ‘People who keep diaries on a regular basis tend to have a stack of old ones, too. Did she?’

Molly shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. She never said she did.’

‘No, nor to me,’ Simon said. ‘But tell us, Detective Inspector, was Cassie’s death definitely murder?’

DI Girling sighed deeply. ‘We’re not absolutely sure – it could be manslaughter, a fight that got out of hand. But I heard this morning from the pathologist that there are indications of a fierce struggle, bruising on her arms, face and to her neck, and he didn’t think falling back on to the hearth would result in death, only if her head had been banged hard against it, perhaps more than once. Then, of course, the daughter’s disappearance and the fact that some of her clothing has been taken adds another perspective. Someone intending to kill a child wouldn’t bother to take clothes or a toy. So it looks to me as if the target was Petal.’

‘You mean that this person wanted to take Petal away? But Cassie tried to stop them and got killed trying?’ Molly asked.

‘That may be the case, but I shouldn’t be talking to you about any of this so I’d be obliged if you’d keep my opinions to yourselves.’

Molly told DI Girling about the man Cassie said she had met in the library, and then Simon told him a little more about how he had got to know her. ‘What about fingerprints?’ Simon asked. ‘Did you find any here?’

‘I’m not at liberty to divulge that,’ DI Girling said. ‘But on that note I’d like you both to come to the police station now to give me yours, so they can be compared with any
others we might have found. After that, I trust neither of you will leave the village, in case we need you to answer further questions.’

Simon and Molly turned down the offer of a lift back to the village, both saying they’d walk. Molly wanted to delay going back to work and seeing her father. Simon gave no reason.

‘I don’t get the impression the police are going to try very hard to solve this,’ Simon said thoughtfully as they made their way up the muddy track. ‘For a start, he never asked me where I was at the time of Cassie’s death.’

‘No, he didn’t, did he?’ Molly said. ‘How odd! In fact, he ought to have taken you in for questioning, not just chatted with us both in the woods.’

‘Exactly! Hardly first-class detective work. But, as it happens, I have a cast-iron alibi. I was staying with some friends – a doctor and his wife – for two days before Coronation Day. I watched the ceremony on their television, along with some of their family. I only left there at five in the evening, and heard about Cassie in the Pied Horse last night.’