A Velvet Scream (25 page)

‘Let me get this straight, Mr Harrison,' Joanna said very slowly and deliberately, beginning at last to see a glimmer of light. ‘You were in Leek on November thirtieth, weren't you?'

Harrison nodded.

And now the soft breeze of the truth was blowing and the fog was lifting. ‘You went to Patches, didn't you?'

Harrison paled and looked as though he might choke. Joanna looked at Mike and gave a tiny, triumphant nod as she asked her next question. ‘Do you own a leather bomber jacket, Mr Harrison?'

‘No.' He chewed his lip then confessed. ‘Yes.'

‘You went to Patches alone, or with someone?'

‘On my own.' Harrison nodded stiffly, as though he knew all further questions were going to lead to a place he had no wish to visit.

‘You danced with some of the girls there; had a drink?' Joanna spoke chummily. She gave her quarry an easy smile. But her glance was predatory, her eyes glued to Harrison's face as his shoulders dropped, defeated.

She flipped two photographs on to the coffee table. ‘Did you dance with either of these girls on that night?'

Harrison's eyes glided over the two photographs before he looked up, frowning. ‘This is Kayleigh, ain't it?'

Joanna nodded. ‘Did you see Kayleigh on that night?'

Harrison shifted uncomfortably and tried to lie. ‘Like I said, Inspector, I wouldn't have known my daughter from – well, Eve.' He tried the smile again.

Harrison's story was full of itty bitty holes. It didn't take a trained detective to spot them. ‘But you recognized the picture of your daughter now?'

Finally Harrison admitted it. ‘Yeah,' he said.

Joanna indicated the second photograph. ‘And these girls?' She flipped to the picture of Molly Carraway, then Clara Williams and lastly Danielle Brixton.

Harrison's face was a blank. He looked up at Joanna, then at Korpanski and shook his head. ‘No. I don't know these other girls. Who are they?' Harrison risked the lamest of jokes. ‘Not more daughters I don't know about?'

‘This girl's name is Molly Carraway. She's missing.'

‘Never heard of her.' Harrison's voice was confident.

‘She's a schoolgirl who went missing from Patches last Friday night and hasn't been seen since.'

Harrison still held on to his jauntiness. ‘Can't 'elp you there, Inspector. Sorry.' He grinned.

‘This girl is Clara: her friend who was the last person to see her.'

Harrison nodded. ‘Pretty little thing, ain't she?'

‘She is. And this  . . .' Joanna flipped the last photograph down on the table, ‘is Danielle Brixton. She was raped and left to die outside a nightclub in Newcastle-under-Lyme back in May.'

‘Seems like crime's worse up there than down here,' was Harrison's comment.

Joanna couldn't be bothered to pursue this subject. ‘It would seem so.'

Korpanski took over the questioning. ‘Have you been in Leek
since
the night of November thirtieth?'

Harrison shook his head.

‘You weren't there last Friday?'

Harrison looked relieved and exhaled loudly. ‘I weren't anywhere near Leek last Friday,' he said. ‘I was down here at a restaurant on the Fulham Road, in full public view.'

‘Can you give us the name of the person or persons you were with?'

Harrison was patently on safe ground now. He visibly relaxed and nodded quite comfortably, even leaning back in his chair and resting his big hands on his stomach. ‘Of course I can. There was a whole bunch of us.'

‘But you were in Leek and at Patches the night your daughter was assaulted?'

Harrison looked paralysed. He tried to say he hadn't known it, but the words stuck. Joanna knew she would be better served by doing this properly, with legal representation present, or at least the offer of it.

The words, when she uttered them, were an absolute inevitability. ‘We're going to have to bring you in for questioning, I'm afraid.'

Harrison nodded, resigned. But he hadn't quite lost his fighting spirit. ‘I'm not under arrest, am I?'

‘No. Not at the moment.'

‘I can come up to Leek in the morning,' he conceded, ‘with my solicitor.'

Again Joanna nodded, steadily, holding back the feeling of triumph which was seeping through her. She had to remind herself she was not there yet.

‘In that case you're free to go now, Mr Harrison,' she said. ‘But if you wouldn't mind coming to Leek police station tomorrow and making a statement – under caution?'

Harrison nodded.

‘What did you make of that, Mike?' They were safely back in the car, had taken the North Circular and were heading back up the motorway.

‘I don't know.' Korpanski's answer was predictably non-committal.

Joanna was frowning. ‘I can't work out what's going on,' she said. ‘I'd really like to speak to Kayleigh and her father at the same time.' She turned in her seat to look at Korpanski's profile; the thick neck, the bullish expression, ‘Mike,' she said tentatively, ‘the word collusion seems to pop up in my mind. What's going on?'

‘Collusion?'

‘Yes.' Joanna slowly nodded. ‘Between Kayleigh and her father. They met that night. He recognized her photograph.'

‘So what's it got to do with Molly, then? Is it going to lead to her?'

‘I don't know. There's some connection. Perhaps – perhaps not. But –'

‘What?' Korpanski grunted.

‘Nothing. A stupid thought.'

Korpanski grinned and swerved to avoid a lorry which had swung out after one swift flash of his indicator. ‘Bastard,' he grunted. Then: ‘How stupid?'

‘I wonder if the crimes really are – no; it is a stupid thought.'

She fell silent then but her mind was skipping around the odd assortment of half facts she had so far.

It was a long, slow journey back to Leek and she and Korpanski were tired when they turned into the police station. ‘Sure you wouldn't rather drop me off at your house?' Korpanski enquired politely.

‘No.' She turned to him. ‘I shall want my car in the morning, Mike, but thanks anyway. And I don't want to take you out of your way.'

‘All right. See you tomorrow.' He smiled at her. ‘At least the snow's held off.'

She managed a smile and held up her index finger. ‘One good thing.'

‘No. Two,' he said. ‘We have found Kayleigh's—'

‘Stop right there,' she said softly. ‘Right there.'

Matthew was already in bed when she turned in but she was too exhausted to sleep. Molly was still out there. When she closed her eyes she saw the girl's face: laughing, happy, safe.

She punched her pillow and lay back, her arms reaching out to touch Matthew's shoulders as they rose and fell. He murmured something in his sleep.

But instead of her matching his restful, peaceful sleep her dreams were vivid and disturbing.

Little Red Riding Hood was opening the door of the cottage. Someone was sitting up in bed.

‘
Oh, grandmother, what big teeth you have.
'

She knew what the implication was of the encounter between father and daughter.

EIGHTEEN

Wednesday, 8 December. 7.15 a.m.

A
nother day marked off on the calendar towards zero. She stood very still and stared. Three and a bit weeks before the wedding. It felt like time was running out; life was closing in on her.

She wished it was spring and she could at least enjoy the bike ride through the moorlands, into work. But it would be at least a month after the honeymoon that she would be able to resume her daily cycle ride.

Waiting on her desk were the forensic results on Molly's gold earring. She scanned it through. Just as expected. Molly's blood; Molly's DNA on the tiny piece of tissue caught on the catch. No one else's. She tossed the report aside. It hadn't told her anything she hadn't already guessed.

It hadn't told her how Molly came to
lose
her earring. Had it been torn from her or had it simply got caught in something? Girls lose earrings all the time. Joanna fingered her own pierced ear, half closed her eyes and imagined.

Someone's fingers closing round the hoop. Tearing, fighting, a struggle, pain, a stifled scream; blood, the tinkle of gold as it hit the floor.

She sat up as the obvious hit her. Blood. Earlobes
bleed
profusely. She remembered Matthew telling her so once in one of his little ‘tutorials'. ‘Earlobes are vascular, Jo. Plenty of blood around.' He'd given one of his bright grins. Matthew knew she was a little – just a little – squeamish. He'd never quite forgotten her puking up in the sink after her first post mortem. And every now and again, when he wanted to score points, he'd remind her.

But she knew
why
the vascularity, to use Matthew's word, of the earlobe was important. Somewhere there was a crime scene and it would be spattered with Molly's blood. She only had to find it. Here there was none.

She rested her chin on her upturned palm, waited for the computer to fire up and stared at the familiar icons, unfocused. Where was Molly? Joanna was cop enough to know that the longer the girl was missing the less likelihood there was of finding her alive. But for her to have vanished so completely from a crowded nightclub? Not even a sighting. How? Joanna gave a cynical grimace. Not even a fake sighting: boarding a plane to Sri Lanka, in a coffee bar in Hanley, waiting for a bus in Uttoxeter. Nothing had turned up. It was almost as though she had never really existed.

Joanna leaned back in her chair and half closed her eyes. It was a terrible thought, that someone could be so obliterated that their fate was never known. Her mind drifted, like a bubble in a light breeze, bobbing around aimlessly, occasionally finding a solid surface but mostly simply bobbing. And then it found a solid surface on which to rest before the bubble burst and she was left with nothing.

It was something Gary Pointer, one of the birthday boys, had said; something about Kayleigh and what she had been saying. Joanna hadn't taken enough notice at the time but now she recalled it.

‘
She was talking a load of crap.
'

What sort of crap? What had Pointer been talking about?

How long had he spent ‘talking' to her?

With the background din of the club how could he tell what she had been saying?

Unless he had been in the quiet room or outside.

She reached out and picked up the telephone.

She had so many questions buzzing around her head now that she was hardly able to put them in order of priority. But now her mind began to tangle with the anomalies of the case of the three girls and slowly she began to sort out truth from untruth and begin to put them in order of relevance to her task: find Molly.

The telephone rang. ‘Am I speaking to Detective Inspector Piercy?' It was a crisp, business-like voice on the other end.

‘You are.'

‘I am David O'Connor.'

She didn't recognize the name.

‘I represent Peter Harrison.'

Ah. Now it was making sense.

‘I understand you wish to interview my client?'

‘That's correct.'

‘And you would like him to attend the police station at Leek?'

‘I would. I did speak to him yesterday and he volunteered to attend here today.'

‘We can be with you for twelve o'clock.'

She sat up, alert. ‘Good,' she said. ‘That's fine. I shall look forward to seeing you both. Thank you for your cooperation.'

‘My pleasure,' the solicitor said sarcastically.

Korpanski had just walked in when the phone rang for a second time.

Feeling that she had already had her one welcome phone call of today, she answered without enthusiasm. ‘Hello, Inspector Piercy here.'

Philip Carraway's voice came down the wire so loudly and angrily that she held the receiver away from her ear. ‘Have you any news of my daughter yet?' His voice was ragged. Whatever she had thought, whatever impression Molly's parents had given, this man was suffering.

‘I'm sorry. We've nothing definite. We're moving on with our enquiries, Mr Carraway. That's all.' She added the platitude. ‘These things take time, you know.'

There was a deep, angry sigh on the other end of the line before he added, brokenly: ‘The strain, you know, it's terrible on my wife and myself. We want an answer. We
need
an answer.' Then, with a touch of hysteria: ‘We
must have
an answer.' He was close to breaking point.

‘We all want an answer, Mr Carraway,' she said quietly. ‘I do sympathize with you but you must let us proceed with our enquiries at our own pace.'

The man was beyond politeness. He simply groaned.

‘Mr Carraway, just for the record, where were you on Friday night?'

He lost his rag then. There was a long, angry silence on the other end of the phone. All Joanna could hear were his heavy snorts of fury before he exploded. ‘I don't believe this. I really don't. So because you've made no headway in the case of my daughter's disappearance you turn on me. Well, it won't work, Inspector. I'm not some drivelling fool that you can intimidate, you know. I am a professional, intelligent man and I know a bodged case when I see one. And don't think you can falsify evidence against me. I'm up to you.'

Quite calmly Joanna repeated the question. ‘Where were you on Friday night, Mr Carraway? It's just for the record,' she repeated.

‘I was at home here with my wife.'

Even Joanna didn't quite have the nerve to ask whether his wife would be happy to verify this but she didn't need to. Beth Carraway came on the line, speaking quietly and with dignity. ‘My husband was with me on Friday,' she said, in a low voice, ‘all evening. We listened to the play on Radio Four until ten and then went to bed.'