One Dead Witness (42 page)

‘
No.’ Henry held Danny at arm’s length so he could see her.
‘You cannot blame yourself for this. Every cop in the world would
go bananas if they blamed themselves for things going wrong in
other people’s lives.’

She closed her eyes sadly and wiped away her tears with a
flourish of both hands. ‘Yeah, right,’ she muttered. ‘What are we
going to do about Joe Lilton?’

‘
Do you think he killed her?’

Danny shook her head. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘
Let’s interview him with a solicitor, then bail him to come
back here in a week. We’ll probably have a better picture of things
by then. What about Mrs Lilton? Should we arrest her
too?’

‘
I don’t think she will be involved, but I suppose we need to
speak to her at some stage.’

The door swished open. It was the Custody Sergeant.

‘
Henry, Danny, need to have a quick word.’

The detectives exchanged a glance, both thinking the same
thing: Joe Lilton had made a complaint of assault against
Henry.

Both were wrong.

Myrna stirred. Her head was still resting on her forearms. She
was stiff and aching. For a few moments she did not move, keeping
her eyes closed and breathing in deeply through her nostrils. She
sat up and stretched the feeling back into her blood-starved limbs.
The crinkle of pins and needles was painful and pleasurable at the
same time. She rolled her neck and winced as her back muscles
protested.

The clock on her desk told her that ninety minutes had passed
since her last phone call to Karl Donaldson in London. Dawn had
already revealed itself across Miami; soon the office cleaners
would be in, followed shortly by the more enthusiastic workers
amongst the staff.

She rubbed her eyes, cleared her throat and glanced across to
Tracey.

‘
Holy shit!’ were the first words Myrna uttered.

The girl had disappeared.

The custody officer pulled the custody record out of its
plastic wallet.

‘
We don’t know who she is - she won’t tell us,’ he said to
Danny and Henry, ‘but she’s about eleven or twelve; she’s as pissed
as a rat, glued up to the eyeballs, as violent as any girl that age
can be and basically a real bitch to deal with. I gave her a drink
of tea which she promptly threw all over me. Luckily most of it
missed; now she’s stripped herself stark naked and is prancing
about in the buff in a juvenile detention room, having urinated and
then shat in one corner. She’s now smeared excreta all over the
walls.’ He raised his nose. ‘Can you smell it?’

Henry inhaled. ‘Ahhh, yes, the smell of shite.’ He smiled
empathetically at the Sergeant; Henry was pleased to announce that
his spell as a custody officer had been brief but horrible, done a
short time after his promotion to uniform Sergeant, somewhere in
the dim, distant past. The role was unenviable, having to be a kind
of unloved intermediary between the investigating officers and the
prisoners. Always a no-win situation. It was a job Henry had quite
happily left behind.

‘
So it’s a crap job you’ve got,’ said Henry. ‘What’s it got to
do with me?’

‘
It’s probably all balls, I suppose, but she said she knew who
killed Claire Lilton, but she wasn’t going to tell us - then she
stuck two fingers up at me and lobbed a turd in my general
direction. I’m getting too old for this,’ he whined, rubbing his
neck. He was twenty-seven. ‘Just thought you’d like to know, that’s
all. Take it or leave it.’

‘
Nothing lost having a word, is there?’ Danny said.

Myrna shot out of her chair and crossed quickly to the
restroom. Tracey was not there. She began a systematic walk through
the offices of Kruger Investigations. Ten minutes later she
returned to her office, pretty certain Tracey had gone. She sat
down heavily and reached for the phone to call night security down
at the front entrance. As her hand drew the receiver to her ear,
she noticed her purse was open. With a curse playing on her lips,
she grabbed the black bag and rummaged through it.

Tracey had beaten her to it.

She had been cleaned out.

Juveniles are not detained in normal cells, but in juvenile
detention rooms which, instead of cell doors, have thick wooden
ones with toughened glass windows. There are no toilets in such
rooms and every time the occupant wishes to pay a visit, they have
to ring the bell. Henry hated dealing with kids. Give him a
hardened professional criminal any day. Much simpler.

He and Danny stood outside the DR and tried to peer through
the layer of faeces the young lady had smeared over the window.
They could just see her, sitting cross-legged on the floor, naked,
singing at the top of her voice, then shouting obscenities between
verses. They could smell her very well.

The cell was covered in it and so was she.

Danny turned to the custody Sergeant. ‘Why was she arrested
anyway?’

‘
A nothing of a job really. Caught shoplifting in W H Smiths.
The store detective chased her, she ran away down the Prom and she
kicked off when she was collared. She gave the store detective a
real shiner, I’m told. Took three bobbies to bring her
in.’

‘
And we don’t know who she is, yet?’

‘
No.’

‘
Yes, we do,’ came a triumphant voice, interrupting the
Sergeant’s reply. It was one of the arresting officers. ‘Been
leafing through the Missing from Home reports, just in case -
and
voila!’
He
flapped a message switch. ‘I think it’s this girl.’

‘
Well done,’ the Sergeant commented.

‘
What’s your plan of action?’ Danny asked.

‘
Hm ... got to get her cleaned up before we do anything with
her. Going to have to get a couple of policewomen into overalls,
drag her out and dump her under a shower. This DR’ll have to be
steam-cleaned now - little madam. Danny?’ He looked questioningly
at the DS. ‘Don’t suppose you’d be interested in grabbing a pair of
overalls and helping out?’ It was a fairly rhetorical question.
‘No, supposed not.’

‘
We’ll come back and speak to her when she’s clean - and
sober,’ Henry said.

The custody officer looked severely miffed at the problem.
Bloody kids, he thought. Should be shot at birth.

‘
Just got off speaking to the States again. A woman named Myrna
Rosza, remember? She was the one who originated the information on
Charlie Gilbert.’

‘
Yeah, I remember.’ Henry had the phone cradled between his ear
and shoulder, sipping a cup of tea, dunking a ginger biscuit at the
same time, saturating it to the point of near-disintegration before
dropping it skilfully into his open mouth. Gorgeous.

‘
Done anything with that yet?’

‘
No,’ he mumbled. ‘Filed for the moment. Too busy with other
things.’ He reached for another biscuit and dunked it.

Karl explained the phone call he’d had from Myrna. ‘Sounds
very interesting,’ Henry commented. ‘Why does she want to speak to
Danny Furness?’

‘
Dunno, but that was the gist of the message; she’s supposedly
a witness to that murder and she’ll only talk to this Furness
guy.’

‘
This Furness guy happens to be a girl, actually.’

‘
So be it.’ Donaldson took a breath. ‘But having said all that,
there’s a bit of a sorry twist in the tail. The girl has now
disappeared.’

‘
Oh, that’s handy. What do you reckon to the story
anyway?’

‘
Myrna is ex-FBI, very bright, don’t take no shit, and wouldn’t
bother me if she didn’t think it was worthwhile. I think the girl
is genuine.’

‘
But she’s done a bunk?’

‘
As you say - done a bunk.’

‘
I’ll speak to Danny Furness for a start, Karl.’

‘
You know him - her?’

‘
Yes. I’ll see what she knows about this girl, if anything. Let
us know if she turns up again; I don’t really see us getting too
excited until then. At the same time I’ll liaise with the murder
team over in Darwen and let them know what’s happening - oh shit!
Sorry, Karl. Just had an accident here.’

Henry had misjudged his timing and whilst in mid-air, on the
journey from cup to lip, his ginger biscuit disintegrated all over
his shirt and tie.

There was, undeniably, the smell of shit in the air:
disinfectant, cheap soap and shit.

Danny’s nostrils dilated as she sat down opposite the girl. A
woman from the social services sat next to the girl, a stern look
on her face. Her nose twitched.

The girl slumped in the plastic chair, a sneer slashed across
her face, contempt oozing from every pore in her body. The white
zoot suit was far too large for her, made her look stupid and
vulnerable.

She peered closely at the girl’s face and saw the redness
around her nostrils and top lip, symptoms associated with
glue-sniffing. Danny’s eyes looked into the girl’s which were wild,
pupils still dilated. Danny speculated how far gone she was,
whether it was recoverable or had her brain and vital organs been
irreparably damaged by the fumes.

Danny pitied her. She made a note to get the police surgeon to
check her out.

‘
How’re you feeling?’

Sullen, no response. Expected.

‘
You’ve cleaned up quite nicely.’

She shook her head sadly as though this was all crap and she
did not need to be here. Her eyes - dilated, watery - showed
nothing but hatred for Danny.

Danny inspected the faxes in front of her. A Missing from Home
report from the police in Huddersfield told her the girl was called
Grace Lawson, that she was eleven years old and had been missing
from a children’s home for three months. It was a long time, but
not unusual, particularly for kids who could fend for
themselves.

‘
What’re you doing in Blackpool, Grace?’ Not that Danny needed
an answer. Second to London, Blackpool, during summer months, was a
Mecca for kids on the run. The girl’s eyes flickered.

‘
Yeah, that’s right. We know who you are.’

She sighed disdainfully and raised her eyebrows.

‘
Cat got your tongue? Not talking will do you no good at
all.’

‘
Oh, just fuck off, bitch.’

Water off a duck’s back. ‘What are you doing here in
Blackpool? How long have you been here and who have you been
with?’

Grace closed her eyes, opened them slowly.
Defiance.

‘
Earlier today you were caught shoplifting in Smiths. You
assaulted the store detective, then hit three police
officers.’

A smile now, pleasure and remembrance.

‘
You think it’s funny?’

‘
Yeah, very fuckin’ funny.’

‘
Is that because your brain’s rotted with glue? Does that make
you see things differently? Can you see anything at
all?’

Grace leaned on the table. ‘I can see an old bitch whose mouth
is opening and closing and spewing shite. That’s what I can
see.’

Danny grinned, thought,
less of the
‘old’.
‘You’ve been on the run a long
time,’ she said aloud. ‘Three months. How have you
survived?’

‘
Easy - when you’ve got a cunt.’

Danny flinched inwardly. Outwardly she did not blink or show
shock. The social worker blanched, her tight lips parting in
shock.

‘
And that’s how you’ve survived?’

‘
Hand jobs, blow jobs, fucks. Yeah, you name ‘em. The cash
keeps rollin’ in.’

‘
You know what sexual intercourse is then?’

Grace grunted in amusement.

‘
And shoplifting?’

‘
Bit of that, sure.’

‘
Who puts a roof over your head?’

‘
None of your business, Mrs Busybody, nosy-cow bitch,’ she
spat, sat back and folded her arms.

‘
How do you know Claire Lilton?’

‘
Who?’ Her face curled up. Danny repeated the name. ‘I
don’t.’

‘
You mentioned her name when you were brought in
here.’

‘
I probably mentioned Robbie Williams too. But I don’t know
him.’

‘
You’re a smartarse, aren’t you?’

‘
I could outwit you any day of the week.’

Danny paused, leaned back and eyed Grace, not surprised by the
responses she was getting. She’d had worse from eight-year-olds.
There was quiet in the room and the slightly metallic hiss of the
tape spools rotating could be heard.

‘
Let me tell you a story, Grace. It’s about a little girl very
much like you.’

‘
I’m not little!’ She was affronted by the
insinuation.

‘
Oh yes, you are. Little in every sense. Body, mind, brain,
intellect. You only think you’re big. You talk big words. You do
big girl things. But underneath you’re a little kid. A child.
Nothing more than a child. I’ll bet you still have a teddy, don’t
you?’