Dead Dream Girl (7 page)

As Crane walked across the marble tiling of the reception area, the dark-haired girl called Carol was collecting a package from the desk. ‘Frank, hi,’ she said. ‘I suppose you’ve come looking for Doctor Watson, though I suspect he sees himself more as Sherlock himself.’

He grinned. ‘Is he about? If not I’ll catch him later.’

‘Yes he is, and I was hoping I might just talk him into taking me out tonight. So you’ve got to be seriously bad news, turning up like this.’

‘I take it you and Geoff are an item?’

‘I thought we were, but since he got his teeth into the DJ story it’s not been the same.’ She tossed her curly hair. ‘I suppose you’ve got to admire the big dope,’ she said, with rueful fondness, ‘the way he clings on with it. He’ll not forgive you, you know, if you sort it all out before he does. I
know
him. I’ll tell him you’re here.’

She went off before he could tell her the case would soon be back with the police and her chance of a night out with Anderson looked good.

‘Frank!’ Anderson walked rapidly across reception. Everything he did was rapid. Crane was sorry about the case being over as far as he was concerned, but relieved not to have to go on uneasily cooperating with a
bumptious
reporter.

‘Geoff, it’s good news, bad news, depending which way you look at it. Mahon. He’s confessed to killing Donna, but the police aren’t buying it.’

Anderson’s mobile face became totally still, and when Crane had given him the story he watched him in a
lengthy silence, and that was unusual too in a man who thought and talked so fast. The news had clearly given him a big shock, just as it had Crane. He finally gave a wry smile. ‘You don’t think this could be Mahon-type cunning? He puts his hand up and then deliberately gives all the wrong answers, so they have to let him go? He’s cleared his name and he’s off the hook for good.’

Crane shook his head. ‘He’s not got that kind of brain, we both know it. And with skilled CID men knowing all the ways to flush out the truth … they’re as certain now it wasn’t Mahon as they were once certain it was. My feeling is he just couldn’t go on facing any more of that shit the Willows was throwing at him. Benson says he was in a state of near-hysteria.’

‘Christ,’ he said softly. ‘I was damn certain it was him, just like the police and the Willows, and one day I was sure someone would nail the bugger. I had that big write-up all there in my mind, you know, boy meets girl, all that stuff. Then girl begins to outclass boy. She’s very popular and it’s obvious she’s going to make it as a model, probably a very good one. Boy can’t hack it. He gets red-jealous, starts knocking her about, finally does her in; if he can’t have her no one can. All set against the slagheap the Willows is these days. It’s a classic.’

Crane watched him. It had to be the born journalist’s mind in action. It
was
a classic, only there were real flesh and blood people involved: a dead beautiful kid, parents who endlessly grieved, a boyfriend off his trolley, a sister who’d had to handle most of the fallout despite having problems of her own.

Anderson shrugged. ‘I shouldn’t imagine Mahon’s heard of Karl Popper’s law of unintended consequences.
He puts his hand up to a killing everyone’s desperate to get off the books and no one’ll let him go near a slammer.’

Crane was to remember about Karl Popper and his ironic law very forcibly not long after.

T
he second he opened the door Crane pushed him firmly backwards into the hall, stepped inside himself, then closed the door behind him.

‘Hey, what’s
your
game!’ There was a savage glint in his eyes and his fists were clenched.

‘I wouldn’t, Marvin,’ Crane said calmly. ‘There’s just you and me today, not you, me and Myrtle.’

That stopped him. Then he gave a sneery smile. ‘No flies on you is there? I hope you don’t think it’s payback time. For your sake.’

‘I’m not looking for trouble, Marvin, but I should warn you I don’t smoke, don’t drink a lot, and work out on a regular basis.’

‘Either go now, pal, or get thrown through the door.’

‘I’d do yourself a big favour and chill out, if I were you.’

But the other took a swing at him, which Crane was ready for and avoided. He then gave Jackson his right fist into the belly. It was a soft belly, with all the pints the man saw off, and air left his lungs like a burst tyre. He fell to his knees, cursing and groaning and clutching himself. It looked as if he should have done himself a favour and chilled out.

‘What was that you were saying about the tooth fairy, Marvin?’

Crane saw the woman then, standing at the kitchen door at the end of the hall. She was small and spare and had sharp, close set features. She wore a grubby yellow
T-shirt
and drawstring shorts. Her reddish hair was in rollers. She looked as if she’d seen it all before. ‘You silly sod!’ she cried, in a piercing voice. ‘Who do you owe money to
now
?’

Still clutching himself, Jackson muttered through clenched teeth, ‘All right, so it was payback time. Now piss off, will you.’

‘I told you I wasn’t looking for trouble. I’m here to ask you a couple of questions.’

‘Hey, mister, who the hell are you, anyway?’

‘Shut it, Effie.’

‘Don’t tell
me
to shut it, you big dozy sod.’

‘Just where were you the night your sister died, Marvin?’

He looked at Crane uneasily through slate-blue eyes. He had the plain Jackson features, not helped by the shaved head. ‘What’s it to you?’ he said, as he got wincing to his feet.

‘A lot, take my word.’

‘How would I know? It must be a year.’

‘Everyone on the Willows knew what they were doing when they found out Donna hadn’t come home, she was so well-known. It’s a bit like the Sunday morning we heard the news about Princess Di, isn’t it? It kind of sticks in the mind, And you were Donna’s brother.’

‘Don’t say you’re digging all the crap up again,’ Effie cried. ‘Not that trollop—’

‘Effie, will you for fuck’s sake keep your neb out?’

‘Nothing but trouble. Well, tell him, nothing but trouble and aggravation, that one, day she was born.’

‘You know they’ve had Bobby Mahon down at the nick, don’t you? There’s not much you miss on the Willows. Well, did you know they’re certain to release him, because they don’t believe he did it, even though he says he did.’

He hadn’t heard. He watched Crane in a puzzled silence. ‘So?’

‘So that’s why I need to know where
you
were that night.’

‘Here, you’re not making out it were anything to do with me?’

‘She was into you for money, wasn’t she, for some reason?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘I get paid to find things out.’

‘Into him for money!’ Effie screeched. ‘The little twat was never off his back: twenty here, twenty there, then there’s not enough to pay the sodding rent book.’

‘I’m warning you, Effie—’

‘I was
glad
! I was glad some bugger threw her in the frigging reservoir. Couldn’t see why he’d left it so long.’

‘One more word—’

‘Go on, you daft clown, you fancied her yourself. Think I’m blind? I know you think I’m stupid.’ Her shrill, cawing tones were suddenly raw with a distilled bitterness. Her voice resounded in the silence. Jackson had reddened, his eyes fell from Crane’s.

‘Is that what she put the bite on you far?’ Crane said, in a voice too soft for Effie to catch. ‘Did something happen between you and Donna when she was under age and you
were over? Something she wanted hush money for? Something Malc would have put you in A and E about, if not a coffin?’

Jackson still couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘She didn’t need no encouragement,’ he muttered. ‘Fourteen or not.’

‘What’s going on?’ Effie scuttled along the hall. ‘What you whispering about? I’m supposed to be your partner.’

‘I was just telling him what’s likely to happen if he doesn’t get his story right about where he was the night Donna died,’ Crane told her. ‘Because now Bobby’s out of the frame they’re going to take a closer at all her other contacts’ – he gave each of them in turn a hard stare – ‘who might have been glad to see Donna out of it for one reason or another.’

Her pinched features were now as flushed as Jackson’s beneath the line of rollers. ‘He was with me, mister,’ she said hurriedly. ‘As true as God’s my judge.’

‘I don’t believe you, Effie. It was the antique guns, Marvin, yes, Dougie’s big one? You want my advice, you’ll put your hand up to that or they’re going to go after you for Donna’s killing. They’ll dig it all up, about her being into you for money and … all the rest. I reckon you’ve got two choices.’

‘Oh, shit!’ Effie wailed. ‘He’s trying to go straight, for fuck’s sake. He’s already been inside.’

‘I know, Effie, but there’s one job he’s not paid for.’

He left them standing in the hall in a numbed and wretched silence.

Crane’s mobile rang. ‘Frank Crane.’

‘Ted here, Frank. Mahon’s completely cleared. We knew he would be, but we told the silly sod that if he’d really
cared about Donna it’d help us to find the real killer if he told us the truth. Well, he really had been in Leeds with the French totty. He finally came up with a postcard he’d got from her. She’d written from Fontainebleu with a full address. It’s dated four days after the Saturday in question and actually refers to the clubbing
last
Saturday and him being most of the night with her. He must have given her a belt round the chops so she’d not forget him …’

Once again he sat with the Jacksons in their cramped living room. Once again emotion seemed to thicken the air. ‘Dear God,’ Malc muttered, hunched in his chair and staring into space, features expressionless. ‘We were
positive
it were him, every last one of us.’

‘These things sometimes happen, Malc,’ Crane told him. ‘I’m very sorry. It means starting from scratch, I’m afraid. The police are aiming to re-assemble the original team who worked on it. I think we can safely leave it to them now.’

‘No, carry on, Frank,’ Connie said, in a sad, firm voice. ‘You got things going, when no one else did, even if it only showed it wasn’t Bobby.’

‘I’d like to stay with it, Connie, but you need to think about the cost.’

‘It doesn’t matter, the money. We’d not have another day’s peace of mind if we didn’t think we’d done
everything
we could. We owe it to our darling daughter, God rest her.’ The skin around her eyes seemed permanently roughened and red with the endless weeping of the last twelve months.

‘You go right ahead, Frank,’ Malc said in a wavering tone, dabbing his own eyes with a handkerchief. ‘It’s what we both want.’

Crane glanced at Patsy. She was as impassive as before, unable to dredge up any more emotion for her dead sister, even though she’d loved her too, with a love Crane felt was maybe surer than theirs, based as it was on her wry acceptance of what she’d known the real Donna to be like.

He got up. ‘All right, I’ll give it my best shot. I’ll be in touch. Need a lift, Patsy?’

‘Please.’

Connie and Malc saw them out as usual, standing in the light of the small lamp above the front door, Malc’s arm protectively about Connie’s bowed form. Crane had seen much human misery in his time with the force but had never been able to handle it as professionally as he should. He thought, ‘Christ, I’ll nail the bastard if it’s the last thing I do.’ He wasn’t to know that it very nearly was.

Anderson was holding centre stage again at the
Glasshouse
. ‘That’s right,’ he was saying, ‘and if a Chinese kid wants to learn the piano they get him going on a simple piece called “Knives and Forks”.’

He had the others laughing, but Carol knew he was in a mood. It was almost impossible to spot unless you knew him well. There’d be that faintly abstract look in his eyes, the slightest impression that he wasn’t giving his full attention to being the life and soul of the party, although his brain spun at such a speed that he was always able to deal with any number of conflicting thoughts at the same time.

‘You want to come back to my place for a bite, Carol?’ he said, when the others were talking generally.

‘You’re not working tonight?’

‘I should be, but all work and no play …’

Yet Carol knew he never played, not these days, and though he’d be jolly and chatty back at his flat, she’d know in the occasional silences that he was brooding about the Donna Jackson business, brooding with a new intensity now that Bobby Mahon had been cleared.

‘We’ll have one more before we go then.’ And he was off to the bar, though not bouncing with his usual restless energy.

Carol knew that Mahon being out of it had messed up that big feature he’d wanted to write, that he was positive would help him in his ambition to be an investigative
journalist
on a paper like
The Sunday Times
. There’d be another ending to the Donna killing and he’d dig it all out
brilliantly
, but they both knew it wasn’t going to have the same impact. Frank Crane was bugging him too, though she knew he also reluctantly admired him, the way he could ferret things out that Geoff was kicking himself that
he’d
not picked up on. He was so competitive, forever wanting to spot the bad lots before the police did. He’d be impossible to live with if Crane got ahead of him now, after all the work he’d put in, though Crane was probably off the case with the police reopening their files. She wished to God Geoff was. It had been nothing but Donna Jackson since they’d pulled the poor kid out of Tanglewood. She sighed. A flesh and blood rival she could cope with, but a dead beauty? Yet she couldn’t help loving the big dope. Things would be different when he made it to London. Then that provoked another dismal thought: would he take her with him?

At the bar, Anderson could brood in peace, not feeling he had to be the amiable charmer he’d spent his working life perfecting. He just couldn’t get Mahon’s innocence out
of his head. It messed everything up, every bloody thing. Donna and that piece of rubbish had been the story. The way he’d decided to write the big feature was carefully to imply that it couldn’t have been anyone else but Mahon, let the reader draw his own conclusions. And then Mahon was suddenly out of the frame. What was the story going to be now? Would it have anything like the same force? He doubted it. He switched on a cheery smile for the bar girl who brought his drinks, who he knew fancied him. Well, at least it must mean that clever sod Crane was off the case, he could do without him turning up the leads that should have been his. That break Crane had had with Cliff Greenwood still stung.

He sat down with Carol, faithful Carol, whose body had stopped turning him on some time ago, though her clever, well-read mind was still a big draw, and the tasty meals she cooked for him. It would be all over when he went to London. Alone, definitely alone. London would solve everything.

Patsy could hardly believe it, but Frank was in her little flat a third time! It couldn’t be the new hairstyle, could it, and the care she was taking with her clothes and
make-up
? She went off to get the drinks, leaving Crane with a renewed sense of guilt. He had an idea the kid was getting a little struck on him, when the only reason he was back here again was the original one – her knowledge of the Willows and the people Donna had mixed with. He’d need her help and also the help of that brash, talented prat, Anderson.

When she came back with the drinks, she said, ‘Where will you go from here, Frank?’

‘Talk it over with Geoff first. He said he’d always be willing to help. It’s in his own interests, of course, wanting to break a story he’s spent so much time on.’

‘He’s a nice bloke. He was very kind with Mam and Dad.’

‘I’ll try and pin him down this evening, though I daresay he’ll be on some job or other. People like me and him don’t do time off.’

‘You … could ask him to come here, if you like. I might be able to help.’

‘You know, Patsy, that’s a very good idea,’ Crane said, and meant it. ‘You had the inside track on Donna, if anyone.’

‘I don’t think anyone had the real inside track on that little madam.’ But she looked very pleased he’d taken the suggestion seriously. Crane began to key Anderson’s number.

‘Geoff Anderson.’

‘Frank Crane, Geoff. Look, Connie and Malc want me to stay on the case. It shouldn’t affect the new police
investigation
, it’ll probably take them a week to get people off other things and back on to this. I’m at Patsy’s place. I wondered if you could find a little time to spend with us and talk the thing through?’

‘Give me half an hour, Frank.’

Anderson snapped shut his mobile. ‘Look, Carol,
something
’s come up. Sorry about the evening. Another time, eh?’

‘Donna Jackson,’ she said dejectedly. She was more than used to seeing him rushing off when there’d been a drugs bust or a knifing, but the DJ story was so
old
. Why couldn’t
Crane see Geoff in the morning, when he usually did have some spare time?

‘Crane’s like a pig with a truffle, Carol. He’s wasted time and the Jacksons’ money by this Mahon nonsense.’ He gave her a quick kiss. ‘Next free night, I
promise
…’

And then he was bounding, more his old eager self than he’d been ever since he’d learnt about Mahon. She wished she didn’t love him quite so much. She was almost certain, if he got to London, she’d not see him again.