An Unfinished Murder Read online

  ‘I met both Ian Carter – he was a sergeant at the time – and his boss, Inspector Parry, who was in overall charge. They came to Bamford to talk to her parents. Later, Carter came back again to inform me they were putting the case to rest, until such time, if ever, as they had something new to go on…’ Markby paused. ‘My impression was that Parry believed she was dead, right from the start. He was an experienced officer and he read the runes. Sadly, he’s no longer with us; Inspector Parry died several years ago.’

  ‘Quite, quite,’ said the ACC, nodding and looking suitably sober, as one did when speaking of a deceased colleague. Then he got back to present business. ‘So, Carter believed he might find her alive? Was that also your impression?’

  Markby replied, carefully, ‘I believe he had high hopes at first; he was reluctant to believe she was dead. He kept insisting she’d come home to Bamford – or at least, that she’d set off home but never arrived. He thought I should be able to track her movements at this end. But all I could establish was that she hadn’t arrived at her parents’ house. No one came forward, in response to our well-publicised appeal, so we had to conclude no one had seen her. I had officers at the train station, interviewing passengers, and down at the bus depot interviewing staff. She normally travelled by the long distance buses. I sought out her local friends from a list made by her parents. I didn’t find a thing . . .’ He paused. ‘Believe me, when Josh Browning showed me that bracelet it was a real bolt from the blue. But I still believe we did all we could at this end, at the time.’

  ‘But your memory of the case could still be of great help, Alan.’

  Markby sighed. ‘I honestly don’t see how.’

  The ACC leaned forward confidentially. ‘I’ll be honest, I don’t see how, either – not now, not at this precise moment. But we don’t know what this new investigation might turn up. And that’s where your memory might prove very valuable indeed.’

  ‘I’m happy to do anything I can, of course…’ Markby hesitated, before continuing. ‘The girl’s father came to see me after Barker had shown him the bracelet. His wife’s mind was affected by her daughter’s disappearance, and she has since died. Hellington himself is a walking shadow of what he once must have been – a successful local businessman.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the travel agency,’ the ACC murmured. ‘Well, then, I take it I can tell the others, when they get here, that you’re happy to come on board. Thank you.’

  Markby opened his mouth to say he wasn’t exactly ‘happy’, and he hadn’t actually been given the chance to decline to come aboard anything. But before he could speak, there was a sharp rap on the door and a young constable, with ‘keen boy’ written all over him, appeared in the doorway. ‘All the others have arrived now, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Jenkins, show them in.’

  The die was cast, thought Markby. Can’t back out now. All aboard the Skylark! I’m now a deckhand.

  So, that’s how the case conference had begun. In theory, when the gathering had originally been suggested, it hadn’t technically been a formal review. But, inevitably, that was what it was always going to become. When he’d been approached and asked whether he’d like to come and see the ACC, and then stay on to meet the others, he’d known what he was in for.

  ‘You don’t actually have to go,’ Meredith had said earlier, before he set out, and while he was still expressing reservations.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he’d replied. ‘It’s an obligation. In old-fashioned terms, you’d say it was a matter of honour.’

  ‘OK, Sydney Carton,’ she said. ‘Mind the steps up to the scaffold.’

  So, now he shook Ian Carter’s hand and agreed that ‘it had been a long time’. Carter had gone grey – looked so much older, Markby thought – but of course he did! Twenty years! Carter probably thought Markby looked like the Ancient Mariner.

  Neither of them chose to mention Markby’s phone call to Carter in which he’d sprung the news on him of Josh’s revelations. There was no need to mention it. It was why they were all here. It was why he was here. He had no one but himself to blame.

  Five of them were gathered in the room and each of them had been provided with a rapidly cooling cup of coffee. It had been brought in by the alert Jenkins, all agog at even this brief admittance to the inner circle. He’ll talk about it for days, Alan thought. None of the visitors seemed inclined to drink the coffee, although a cautious sip had revealed to him that it was quite good. It hadn’t come from some machine, such as the one he remembered from his working days at Bamford. That had dispensed a dreadful concoction that had managed to be both boiling hot and tasteless. Today’s coffee had been brewed in some percolator reserved for the ACC and his visitors.

  That’s what I am, Markby reminded himself. I’m a visitor! I’m here to give them my memories of a failure, a case neither solved nor closed, but lurking in some limbo. ‘Rebecca Hellington. Student. Aged eighteen.’ That’s what the file will tell us. A girl destined always to be eighteen years old, never to become nineteen. When you die, the clock stops and the calendar freezes. You cannot go forward; you cannot go back and undo the sequence of events leading to your death. You stay as you are, or were, at that moment. That is how Arthur Hellington remembers his daughter.

  When Rebecca dressed on the morning of her death, she pulled on jeans she would never take off again. Forensics had established she’d worn jeans because, although the fabric had rotted away, a metal button and studs had survived. In the same way, her bra had rotted, but not the hooks and eyes that had fastened it, nor the two half-hoops of underwiring in the cups. Forensics believed that whatever top she’d worn had been made of cotton, because no trace remained. But she’d worn a jacket with an imperishable zip and buttons at the cuffs. Her trainers had survived as well. Thanks to the acquisitive instincts of eight-year-old Dilys Browning, sister of Josh, they now knew Rebecca had worn the bracelet spelling out her name. If they’d known earlier that Dilys had slipped it from the dead girl’s wrist, it would have helped. It might even have been of use to Forensics. But Dilys had kept her secret and polished her treasure until the hallmark had nearly been rubbed out. Nothing now could be gleaned from the bracelet and, in every way, they were picking up the trail twenty years late.

  Perhaps that explained the blank, official expression on Ian Carter’s face, letting them know he had come here with an ‘open mind’ and had set himself to be scrupulously polite to all concerned. Markby didn’t doubt Carter would be polite. He couldn’t judge how open-minded he would prove. That inexpressive mask was one Markby recognised well; all officers learned to assume it when necessary. He had donned the same mask himself, in the past, numerous times. It could mean that Carter’s brain was totally empty of any new ideas.

  The other two occupants of the room showed more animation. One was a young woman of athletic build. Her long dark hair was brushed back and secured with a grip. But, disconcertingly, the fringe of hair over her forehead had been bleached. She looked as alert as a gun dog. The remaining member of the gathering was Bamford’s Inspector Trevor Barker, in a well-brushed uniform. Markby recalled Meredith’s quip about Sydney Carton and thought that, if anyone here looked like he was headed for the scaffold, it was Trevor Barker. He noticed that Barker looked critically at Ian Carter. Poor old Trevor must be feeling as if his territory had been invaded.

  The woman with the piebald hairstyle was there to put the case for the Major Crime Review Unit. She wasted no time before doing just that. She was confident, fluent and determined; she didn’t wait to be invited to speak.

  The MCRU was regretfully unable to assign any personnel to the case at the moment. They were currently snowed under with other unsolved cases. They had received an unprecedented flurry of new information on old crimes, much of which held out hope of real progress. They were, of course, understaffed, as everyone knew. They’d repeatedly requested, and been denied, a bigger budget and both more officers and more clerical staff. They were aware that, locally, there was a
lot of interest in this case. The national press had also run stories on the discovery of the bones. There was public pressure for some result and MCRU were, of course, willing to help where they could, but—

  At this point, the ACC managed to regain control and interrupted her, to say crisply, ‘You can’t put any more boots on the ground, you mean.’

  She flushed and said, ‘Yes, sir, if you’d like to put it like that.’

  Markby had tuned out the last bit of her speech. It had been clear from the opening words where it was going. Carter had his eyes closed and Barker was chewing furiously at his lower lip. They all understood. They were on their own, she was saying, unless they wanted to wait an unspecified length of time before the unit got round to them. She was not to be denied the final word, however.

  ‘After all,’ she said, unable to disguise a note of triumph, ‘let’s be honest. This is no longer what used to be called “a cold case”, is it? Not with the discovery of an actual body.’

  Markby suppressed the urge to ask what kind of body wouldn’t change the situation. A virtual body?

  ‘Rebecca’s death,’ she concluded, ‘must be considered the subject of a current investigation by the regular CID.’

  She might have added, ‘So there, you guys!’ Instead, she sat back and turned a defiant stare on the apoplectic Trevor Barker.

  ‘Nor have I got officers and civilian staff sitting round doing nothing!’ he yelped.

  The ACC knew when the better tactic was to cede the terrain and hope to return to the fray later with more success. He murmured, ‘Now then, Trevor…’ He cleared his throat, placed his clasped hands on his desk and went on, ‘With the discovery of remains, this is – as our visitor quite correctly stated –’ giving a nod towards the MCRU’s representative, ‘no longer an old, unsolved case. It’s a new one – and geographically it does fall within your remit, Trevor.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ muttered Barker.

  The young woman did her best not to look triumphant, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

  Markby and Carter exchanged looks of resigned understanding. Then they both looked at Barker whose expression now suggested he’d just had news of a disaster in his family. Which he had, in a way, because his team of investigating officers and support staff formed a kinship and all would be affected by any decision taken here today.

  ‘So,’ the ACC went on, having now adopted a Buddha-like calm, ‘it will be your case, Inspector Barker. We are fortunate in that former Superintendent Markby and Superintendent Carter, who has so kindly driven over from Gloucestershire this morning…’ he managed to make Gloucestershire sound like the remote heart of the Amazon rain forest, ‘will both offer all possible assistance. Together they worked on the original investigation, and have indicated they are willing to put their experience of the case at your disposal, and to help out in any way they can. In your case, Alan, we are keenly aware that we are proposing to drag you out of retirement.’

  At this, all the others looked at Markby with something like envy mixed with resentment. He was the man with the bolt-hole into which he could scuttle if things got difficult. He nodded and mumbled something appropriate.

  ‘What about the press?’ asked Carter. ‘There will be considerable interest, both locally and nationally.’

  ‘A statement will be released to the press tonight, following this meeting, confirming the identity of the remains found in recent excavations in Brocket’s Spinney. There has already been considerable speculation, of course.’

  ‘It will be worse when the press get hold of the identity of the remains,’ said Barker gloomily. ‘Would-be informants will be coming out of the woodwork, and it’s a racing certainty that ninety-nine per cent of them will be time-wasters.’

  There followed a moment of introspective silence on the part of all present.

  Then the ACC said, encouragingly, ‘You may be lucky, Inspector Barker. You may get a good lead fairly soon.’ He waited a moment for Barker’s reply and, when none was forthcoming, asked, ‘Now, then, is there anything else at this moment in time?’

  It appeared no one had anything further to add.

  ‘Good!’ exclaimed the ACC. He didn’t actually rub his hands, but he did clap them together. ‘Now, then, I believe they’ve reserved a table for us in the canteen. To lunch!’

  At this, all his visitors looked depressed, and they trailed out in a huddle.

  ‘Be sure to insist,’ muttered Barker in Markby’s ear, as they descended the stairs, ‘they pay you a whacking great consultancy fee! I bet they can find the money for that!’

  Carter had overheard and muttered back, ‘Don’t count on it. They couldn’t run to a modest restaurant lunch. We’ll be lucky to get something better than beans on toast!’

  Despite their worst fears, the canteen, no doubt under pressure not to let the ACC down, produced a decent lasagne and a dessert of jelly with fruit in it that brought back childhood memories for Markby.

  After lunch, once they were outside the building, they waved goodbye to the champion of the MCRU. Before she drove away she smiled for the first time, turning on them a beaming grin of victory. The three men retired by common consent to the nearest pub and conferred, as Britons like to do, over a pint at a rickety corner table decked with stained beermats and a small clay flower-pot stuffed with little paper tubes of salt, pepper and sugar.

  ‘Dropped in it!’ declared Barker. ‘That’s what. We’ve been dropped in it.’ He had been covertly studying Carter’s hair. Though greying, it was thick and strong. Perhaps it was something in the other man’s diet?

  ‘I certainly have been,’ agreed Carter. ‘And I suppose you have, Alan. But you’re retired and have every right to refuse to cooperate. I am still a serving officer, so it’s my duty to look gracious and offer up such resources as I can contribute to the cause.’ He turned to Barker. ‘Actually, this is your pigeon, Trevor. The girl’s remains have been discovered here. It’s your patch. It’s likely she died hereabouts. The ACC, back there, is quite correct.’

  He could not prevent himself casting a meaningful glance at Markby, and one with a tinge of triumph in it. He didn’t say, ‘I told you so, twenty years ago.’ But the look said it all.

  Markby murmured, ‘We found no evidence of that, at the time. We know she intended to come home, but no one came forward who saw her here. She didn’t contact anyone – family or friends.’

  ‘But now we’ve got a body!’ Carter rebutted this mild disclaimer briskly. ‘Or you have, Trevor.’

  ‘We may have the remains of a body,’ said Barker through gritted teeth, ‘but I have not got the manpower. I thought I’d made that quite clear earlier – neither the manpower nor the resources. I do respect the fact, Superintendent, that you’ve got your own caseload, down there in Gloucestershire. That quite properly has first call on your attention and resources, rather than the body unearthed in Brocket’s Spinney. Plus, I don’t suppose you want to spend hours trailing round interviewing witnesses who will probably be geriatric by now. I’m not accusing you of being geriatric, Alan!’ he added hastily. ‘But fair enough, you’ve retired and we can’t expect you to give up a lot of your time.’

  ‘Not all the witnesses are geriatric, either,’ said Carter unexpectedly. ‘Rebecca’s boyfriend, Peter Malone, is still only in his mid-forties and lives locally – I mean, in Gloucestershire. I saw him recently, dining with, I suppose, his wife. I’m willing to track him down and have a talk with him.’

  Barker brightened. ‘Great!’ He turned to Markby.

  ‘I would like – but only if you agree, of course, Trevor – to talk to Dilys Browning,’ offered Markby. ‘I understand she’s in prison and nearing her release date. But I’d like to talk to her before that. Once she’s out, the press will get to her; there is plenty of human-interest material there. But someone needs to find out if there’s anything she can add to what we already know. We do know she went back on her own to retrieve the bracelet from where Josh persuaded her
to throw it away; and she might have seen some activity in the lane leading down to the spinney. I understand you may wish to interview her yourself, Trevor. But my information is that she’s difficult and mistrustful. She does know, however, that her brother trusts me. That may just help.’

  ‘Be my guest!’ said Barker. ‘But she was only eight. It’s a bit much to expect her now to remember details.’

  ‘Well, possibly, but there’s always a chance.’

  The tone of cooperation had been set.

  Carter said, thoughtfully, ‘I rather like to meet your gardener, Alan.’

  ‘Josh? You can do that today, before you set off home. I left him working at my place. I suppose he’s still here. I’ll call Meredith and ask. She can stop him leaving before we get there.’

  ‘Good! I know his story is now a matter of record, but I’d still like to hear it from him in person!’

  Trevor Barker was looking marginally more cheerful. ‘I’ll talk to Rebecca’s father again. And I’ll go and see that old girl, Pengelly. She’s had time to shake up her memory, and she might have recalled seeing something going on around that spinney. I understand she can see the damn place from her kitchen window.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Markby, ‘Auntie Nina! Not allergic to feathers, I hope, Trevor?’

  Barker looked startled.

  Markby continued, ‘Meredith, my wife, called on Nina Pengelly and learned there is another long-time resident of Brocket’s Row still living there. A Fred Stokes.’

  ‘Why did your wife call on Nina Pengelly?’ demanded Barker, squinting suspiciously at Markby.

  ‘She thought the old lady might be worried. Meredith worked in the consular service, years ago. She dealt with quite a few distressed Brits, among other things…’ Markby paused, and added, ‘We quite look on Josh as part of the household.’

  ‘Well, you’re not the local squire,’ said Barker firmly. ‘My officers and I can handle interviews with Mrs Pengelly – and with this Fred Stokes.’