An Early Grave (10 page)

CHAPTER 15

Superintendent Harold Tweedy was holding his regular Monday morning court with the squad of detectives he had assigned to various cases, including the murder of the young girl found on the Treadwater Estate. Tara was not pleased, but realised she had only herself to blame. She hadn’t divulged the name of the murder victim, because she didn’t want to further involve Callum Armour in the investigation, at least not until she had the full measure of the man. She knew he had more to tell, but he was playing a game with her, and she was determined that eventually he would give her the whole truth. It was galling then to hear DS Alan Murray receive the plaudits from Tweedy for getting an ID on the girl.

‘Thanks to Alan’s hard work over the weekend,’ said Tweedy, ‘We now have a name for the victim, subject to a positive identification. Alan, would you care to explain?’

Murray looked fired up to deliver his findings. He had that bubbling, dedicated enthusiasm that seemed so false to Tara. One of the traits she’d noted in the man since they had both joined Tweedy’s team a year earlier. She always felt the need to compete with him. She wasn’t sure if that came from within or whether he invoked a competitive spirit between them. Murray didn’t appear to behave in this manner with the other detectives in the office. She took it personally. At times she thought it came down to her being the senior officer, despite his longer service in the police.

‘Ok,’ he began,’ Firstly, I thought I should widen the criteria for possibilities as to the victim’s background. The word burned into the girl’s flesh we believe to be in Polish, suggesting that the victim is of that nationality. But I thought perhaps she could hail from any of the ex-pat communities around the city. There had been no reports of missing persons from locals, and so I contacted as many ex-pat community groups as I could find listed.’

Tara stared coldly at the Detective Sergeant. Bull-bloody-shit, she fumed. She’d instructed him to do just that, and he didn’t even have the decency to glance in her direction, never mind credit her with the idea.

‘Anyway, cut a long story, turns out a group of hotel staff, all from Lithuania, had expressed concern to a local community liaison officer who deals specifically with Lithuanian workers that one of their number had not reported for her shift for more than a week. Bradbury Hotel, in the city centre. I tracked some of them down at their work, and their description of their colleague matches that of the victim.’

Tara thought him long-winded. She thought it good work, of course, but Murray was milking it.

‘Do you have a name, Alan?’ she asked curtly.

‘Audra Bagdonas. Seventeen years old. Lithuanian. Been living in Liverpool for six months.’

‘Address?’

‘A house on Stanley Road. Shared with others, I’m told, but no names as yet.’

‘Family?’ Tara asked, keeping up the pressure.

‘Don’t know if she has family living here. If not, we’ll try to get a contact through the consulate for possible family in Lithuania.’

‘Thanks for that, Alan,’ said Tweedy.

Tara noted on her first day in this squad how Tweedy always addressed his officers and staff by first name. She knew him to be a religious man, and at times when he spoke he sounded just like a Sunday school teacher, always sincere, like he cared deeply for their welfare. His manner brought a certain placidity to the situation. They were investigating a vile murder and yet, speaking in such calm matter-of-fact tones, they might have been brain surgeons or stress guidance counsellors.

‘Hopefully, we have now identified the girl,’ Tweedy continued. ‘We need to establish a motive, and so far Tara’s contact, Dr Armour, has suggested that adult films were being made at the house. We should continue to work with that lead. Alan, if you can visit the girl’s home on Stanley Road? See what you can find. Tara and John, I want you to return to the scene of the killing. It’s been almost a week since it happened. Ask around now that you have a name and some background to this poor girl. See if we can rule out the possibility of a hate crime on racial grounds.’

Tara continued to seethe as they left Tweedy’s office. After a Friday evening of straight talking with her friends she felt buoyant and confident, in the right mood to stand up for herself. She made sure Tweedy was still in earshot when she spoke to Murray.

‘Seems like my hunch paid off, Alan. Any joy with the porn movies?’

Murray didn’t reply until he’d reached the relative safety of the detectives’ open-plan operations room, beyond the narrow corridor leading from Tweedy’s office. Tara reckoned that if Murray had found any information on adult film making he would be too embarrassed to share it in front of Tweedy. He was more likely to choose a time when he could embarrass her instead.

‘Yes, I forgot to mention it,’ he said rather sheepishly. ‘Found several contacts by asking at a couple of the sex shops around Bootle. Nothing illegal, just a bit earthy. Uncensored stuff. A woman in one store told me that quite a few mucky films are made on Merseyside. Another product for the black market and, of course, the local mobs are getting some of the action. She didn’t sell any of it though. Didn’t believe her on that score. She also told me that many of the stars of these films are young immigrant girls. Some of them are prostitutes and others, far from home and controlled by pimps, get sucked into the porn business. In fact, the woman in the shop was Polish.’

‘Do you think she’s involved in any of this movie making?’

Murray shrugged.

‘We can always pay her another visit, make it official,’ he said.

He left her with much more to consider than she’d bargained for, with her feeble attempt to embarrass him after his showing off in front of Tweedy. The evidence so far pointed at a sex crime, connected with adult movies, but Tweedy’s suggestion of a racially motivated killing also struck a chord. She thought immediately of the rough-cut boy who had snapped her picture outside Callum Armour’s house. For that matter, she thought also of Callum who was ever slow to reveal what he knew. She found it strange that he’d known the girl’s first name. Was he capable of murder when he lived in fear himself, his head bursting with theories of how his wife, daughter and student friends had perished? Why burn the letters of a Polish word, a derogatory word, into the girl’s flesh? Surely the hard-nut in the Everton shirt didn’t have the ability to translate a word from his limited vocabulary into a foreign language. She’d be surprised if he could write his own name.

Tara and DC Wilson drove out to Netherton, to the Treadwater Estate. Her twenty-seven years spent without ever visiting this part of Liverpool, and now she was driving through its streets for the fourth time in less than a week. This morning they arrived in a marked police car at the back door of the house where Audra Bagdonas had died. Three other cars sat in the parking bay. She saw signs of life in some of the houses; laundry hung on the rotary line of the house next door to the crime scene, a kitchen window open at the next house in the row and the sound of hammering from somewhere nearby that reverberated off the walls around the cul-de-sac. Tara climbed out of the car and for a moment stood gazing around her. How could somewhere so peaceful, so normal of a weekday morning, be the scene of a murder of a young girl whose life began hundreds of miles from here, in a land so different from this one? Strange how events conspired to bring the girl to this street at a particular time. A date with destiny. A day of reckoning, the day of her death.

‘Take another look around the house, John. Inside and out. You’ve brought the key?’

‘No problem, Mam,’ he replied, showing the key in the palm of his hand.

‘I’ll be around here if you’re looking for me.’

Wilson made his way inside the house, while Tara wandered slowly down a narrow walkway at the end of the row of houses on the opposite side of the parking bay. She emerged at the front of the row and a few yards along found herself at the home of Callum Armour. She had nothing specific to ask him, unless he was ready to provide more information on the killing, but she felt compelled to check on him. His stories of a serial killer hunting down the alumni of Latimer College still intrigued her. The questions Aisling posed the other night had irked her. To her friend, everything to do with men was black and white. Were they good looking? No, move on. Yes. Were they loaded? No, move on. Yes. Get in there. It was as good a philosophy as any other she could dream up. Her one major sojourn into romance had been a disaster that nearly cost her a degree from Oxford. Why not think more like Aisling? Enjoy men, but keep your defences up. Don’t let them call the shots. Was Callum Armour good looking? Probably, under that dreadful beard and filthy clothes. Was he rich? Probably not, unless he stashed his money under a mattress. She didn’t think him the type to trust a bank. Now, here was a question that Aisling, more than likely, had never considered of a man. Was he a killer? Don’t know; move on.

She knocked on his front door. The house was quiet; no dog barking, no sounds of chain locks or bars pulling free. A strong wind beat against her on the exposed doorstep, a chill wind for high summer. He was probably out walking that smelly dog. Forgetting almost that she was standing by his door, she gazed around the street wondering if any of the girls she’d met the previous week were about. She’d be very interested to get them on their own, away from the male of their species. What would be their take on hearing that porn films were made in the house where Audra had died? Had anyone ever approached them to take part in filming?

She was about to turn away from Callum’s when a man stepped from the house next door. Billy Hughes, a hefty man, slow on his feet, greased back hair like a well-aged Elvis, called out to her.

‘Nobody in, luv.’

‘Do you know when he will be back?’

‘Are you from the police?’ He said it like he didn’t believe for a second that the little girl before him could actually be a police detective.

‘Detective Inspector Grogan. I’m investigating the murder of the young girl last week.’

‘Shockin’ that was. Don’t know what the world’s coming to. An end probably. The like of that happening ‘round here. A little foreign girl, wasn’t she?’

‘That’s right. Did you know her at all?’ He shook his head and waddled down the garden path in his tatty slippers and navy trousers held by braces over a plain white shirt.

‘There’s no such thing as neighbours anymore. Used to be everybody knew each other else round here. You might not know their whole life story, but you could always stop and say hello. Now? Nobody has any time for you. You never know who’s coming or going. You’ve no idea who’s living right beside you. Some of them hardly speak a word of English anyway.’

Sorry she’d asked, and still no answer to her question, she retreated down the path only to realise Billy Hughes was heading in her direction.

‘See young Callum?’ He nodded towards the barricaded house. ‘Lying up in Aintree.’

‘Hospital? What happened?’

‘Somebody took a dislike to the lad. Used one of them Taser guns on him, and then gave him a hiding.’

‘How bad?’

‘Bad enough. Lay in the alley all Friday night. Freezing cold when they found him. There’s some bad kids round here. Callum never did anybody any harm. He’s a bit messed up, but he’s had a hard life. And the poor dog, too.’

‘What happened to Midgey?’ She said it like she had feelings for the smelly mutt, but she would never wish it harm.

‘They nailed the poor brute to a fence. Vet had to put it down.’

Tara felt a shiver down her back. Her mother always said she could never have made a doctor or a nurse. Couldn’t even bear to talk about pain and injury never mind have to treat a patient. The thought of what the poor dog suffered left her feeling nauseous.

‘Any idea who might have done this?’

Billy Hughes shook his head.

‘Round here? Could’ve been anybody, luv.’

She thanked Callum’s neighbour and hurried back along the alley to find Wilson leaning against the bonnet of the car, hands in pockets, quite content it appeared, to wait for her rather than find something useful to occupy him. Before she could reach him, a young girl, wheeling a buggy and child, emerged from the back yard of a house, three down from the murder scene. Tara’s eyes met those of the pregnant girl she’d encountered the previous week. It was obvious the girl did not wish to speak with her; she looked in a quandary over which direction to go, but it was too late.

‘Hello, Debbie, isn’t it?’

Resigned to her fate, the girl stopped, glared at Tara but didn’t speak.

‘I didn’t realise you lived so close to where Audra Bagdonas was murdered.’

‘I told you I didn’t know her.’ Debbie looked like a girl with something on her mind; a furrowed brow did not look appealing in one so young.

‘You told me that Liths and Poles came and went from the house?’

‘Doesn’t mean I knew any of them.’

‘What about men? See any men going in?’

‘A couple of times, but I don’t know who they were. Spoke foreign.’

‘Did anyone ever ask you to go inside with them?’ Debbie shook her head, her eyes set firmly on the boy in the buggy, well turned out in a red track suit with blue and white trim, his gaze fixed on the police car.

Tara knew she was getting nowhere. The more questions she asked the more these kids seemed to clam up as if they took it as a personal humiliation to be interviewed by the bizees. She decided upon a different tack.