Good Girls Don't Die (15 page)

The pub was quaint, an old coaching inn popular with eighteenth-century smugglers, according to a framed potted history above the bar, but it was fifteen miles from Colchester – in the opposite direction to Wivenhoe – and, Grace hoped, not a regular watering hole for any of her work colleagues. She had rung Roxanne’s mobile from a public call box at the railway station and asked if they could meet. It was all unpleasantly surreptitious, but Grace couldn’t rest until she knew precisely what she had or hadn’t said the other night at the Blue Bar.

Unfamiliar with the road, Grace had given herself plenty of time and so arrived early. By the time Roxanne was twenty minutes late – and had not texted to say where she was – Grace was beginning to think this was a bad idea. She wouldn’t have blamed Roxanne for bailing out: she must have sounded fairly peremptory on the phone, and Grace could only assume that if Roxanne had had anything at all to do with the leak she must be feeling pretty uncomfortable about it by now. For surely, even if she could forgive
herself for betraying an old friend, she must recognise how she’d jeopardised the hunt for a killer?

As Grace waited, she thought back to one of her abortive attempts to straighten things out with her old friends back in Maidstone. She’d asked Margie to meet her one Sunday lunchtime in a pretty village pub well away from work. Margie, who’d been a good mate and watched her back at work, was her witness when she married Trev. Their wedding hadn’t been a big affair, but he’d insisted on somewhere truly romantic and had wangled a midweek July package at Leeds Castle. After all the food and speeches, Grace had walked arm in arm with Margie beside the moat, admiring the stately swans, and believed she couldn’t be happier. Little more than eighteen months later Margie had sat rigidly by a roaring fire in that village pub as Grace tried to remind her of their closeness, to appeal for understanding and forgiveness. It had been a wasted effort and a scornful Margie had departed soon afterwards, leaving Grace even more miserable than when she arrived – something she hadn’t imagined possible.

When Roxanne finally turned up, she was unapologetic about her lateness. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, before even saying hello. ‘Trev’s not been back hassling you again, has he?’

‘No.’ Grace was taken aback by the question.

‘Only you sounded a bit desperate on the phone. And what with all the cloak and dagger stuff with the call box, I got worried.’

‘No, no, I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Oh, thank goodness. Can I get you another? Better go easy as we’re both driving.’

‘I’m not drinking. I never drink and drive.’ Grace saw too late that she sounded prissy, but Roxanne had already gone over to the bar so it was too late to explain that for a police officer it was simply never worth the risk of being pulled over. She frowned into her water and lime juice. She knew it was perverse to be annoyed by Roxanne’s concern, but this wasn’t the conversation she had planned.

Roxanne soon returned with a glass of white wine and settled cosily in beside Grace on the dark oak settle. ‘I wanted to call over the weekend to see how you were,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t dare risk it.’

‘Just as well. I nearly got fired this morning as it was.’

‘What?’ said Roxanne. ‘Why?’

‘The story in today’s
Courier
.’

‘How would that get you fired?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Really? Tell me, did you happen to get the shifts you were after in London?’

Roxanne grinned. ‘On the
Courier
? Yeah, not bad, eh?’

‘So how did that happen?’

‘Ivo Sweatman put in a word for me.’

‘The guy who wrote the story in the
Courier
?’

‘Right. You’ll have seen him at the press conferences.’

‘He sits next to you?’

‘Yes,’ Roxanne agreed. ‘Did you see my piece in the
Mercury
?’

‘I’ve been kind of busy today.’

‘About the university claiming student confidentiality when it ignored complaints against Matt Beeston and let him continue teaching.’

‘You’re not big on confidentiality?’

‘Grace, what the hell’s the matter? Are you pissed off with me?’

‘I don’t know. Should I be?’

‘What am I supposed to have done?’

‘Friday night. Is that how Ivo Sweatman got the information about the vodka bottle?’

‘Friday night? You know what happened Friday night.’

‘I know you made sure I kept knocking back the tequila.’

Roxanne drew back and studied Grace’s face before she spoke. ‘You mean you think I deliberately got you pissed to get information out of you?’

‘Look, I need to know,’ said Grace, hearing the unpleasant edge to her voice. ‘Was I so pissed that I told you about the bottle?’

‘You don’t remember?’

‘No.’

Roxanne waited for Grace to say more. Grace knew she ought to backtrack, to apologise, but some stupid pride at all the times she’d had to grovel and crawl to people in Maidstone just in order to carry out some semblance of her job made her stubborn.

‘But that’s what you think happened?’ Roxanne asked carefully.

Grace rebelled against being made to feel like she was
in the wrong. ‘I got hauled in front of the chief constable first thing this morning. She was all dolled up in full dress uniform like the bloody Gestapo. They took my phone off me, and if the Professional Standards Department get called in they’ll want my laptop, too. If they knew I was here with you now, I’d be sacked.’

‘Because you might be telling me stuff you shouldn’t and I’d pass it all on to the
Courier
?’

‘Yes,’ Grace insisted, refusing to listen to the small voice in her head warning her to drop it, right now.

Roxanne laughed contemptuously. ‘It was a great front page this morning.’

‘Don’t play games! Please, Roxanne! I took enough of this crap in Kent. You’ve no idea.’ It took all Grace’s strength not to wipe her face as the visceral memory of being spat at in the supermarket aisle returned.

But Roxanne merely shrugged, her face pale against the dark curls of her hair. ‘You broke their rules. Maybe they felt entitled.’

‘They were really bad rules! I was trying to protect people!’

‘But you did pass on information knowing there’d be consequences.’

There was a funny twist on Roxanne’s face, and finally Grace remembered some of what she and Roxanne
had
talked about on Friday night at the Blue Bar, how gently Roxanne had coaxed the full story out of her, how comforting and reassuring she’d been. Roxanne had been the first person who’d just sat and listened and then hugged her close. And this was how Grace was thanking her!

‘I’m sorry, Roxanne. It’s been a tough day. I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. But I do need to know what happened in case it comes to some kind of inquiry.’

‘You can work it out, can’t you?’

‘I was tired and drunk. I need to know I didn’t say anything.’

‘I’m sure it’ll all come back to you eventually.’ Roxanne got to her feet. ‘I’d better be heading back.’

‘Forgive me?’

‘Sure. Whatever.’ Roxanne turned her back, gathering up her bag and jacket. She had barely touched her glass of wine.

Grace reached out and held her by the arm. ‘So where did Ivo Sweatman get his story?’

Roxanne responded with a cold stare, shaking free of Grace’s grip before she answered. ‘I can’t reveal my sources.’

‘So it did come from you?’

‘Like I say –’

Recoiling from Roxanne’s hard look, Grace retaliated. ‘You blew our best chance with the suspect today.’

Roxanne shrugged. ‘It’s a free press.’

‘And that gives you the right to run our case for us?’

‘We answer to our readers.’

‘Really? That’s your authority?’ Grace demanded. ‘Well, Rachel Moston’s parents are readers. They read the
Courier
today. So I wish you and your pal Ivo Sweatman had been there in the room with them to explain why the freedom of the press is so fucking important!’

‘Don’t give me that moral bullshit!’ Roxanne hit back.
‘You do your job because you get a kick out of it, same as I do, so don’t get all holier-than-thou about it.’

Grace sat and watched Roxanne march out of the pub. She felt dreadful. Deep down, she was pretty certain she’d been in the wrong from beginning to end, but some little devil in her had pushed and pushed, as if she wanted to prove to herself how unlovable she was, how untrustworthy a friend. She was right back where she started, and this time she really did have only herself to blame.

As Ivo walked from the car park, he was amazed to see quite so many twinkling lights clothing the curving slopes of the parkland around the ornamental lakes. It was all very pretty, a clear June evening with trees casting long shadows, but nevertheless he’d not expected such a huge crowd to gather here to mark Polly Sinclair’s twenty-first birthday. Quite a few of the people who, like him, were still making their way towards the grassy hill beyond the nearest lake carried yellow balloons tied with matching streamers, while others wore white T-shirts printed with a photograph of a smiling, fluffy-haired Polly, with her name and
MISSING
in bright red letters. The
Courier
had had them printed and sent people to distribute them, while the photographer had been given instructions to snap the cutest-looking girls he could find wearing them.

Some small groups, camped around clusters of flickering tea lights, hugged each other tearfully, but mainly there was an incongruously expectant atmosphere. Ivo had already spotted picnickers; quite a few of those arriving
alongside him carried bottles of wine and from several directions he could hear music being played. Where did they think they were? Glastonbury? Not that he’d write that in tomorrow’s edition. No, it would be more along the lines of
Like stars in the sky, Polly’s loyal friends lit candles and stifled tears to wish Happy Birthday to the golden girl, now missing for eleven long days.

He could see at least three camera crews out working the crowd, recording vox pops for the evening news segments. Half the car park had been reserved for their oversized macho broadcast vans, while he’d been forced to bum change for a pay-and-display ticket. When he’d spoken to Fiona Johnson, the university’s director of communications, she’d been hard put to hide her disdain for red-top scum like him. But let some rugged, ex-war-zone anchorman turn up and lavish his camera-friendly dentistry on her and she’d no doubt be melting into his arms. Those TV people were so up themselves it wasn’t true.

Ivo was in a bad mood. Although he’d been able to quash the idea without too much trouble, it had been irksome that his editor had allowed his arm to be twisted by the Young Ferret into floating the idea past Ivo that his junior should get an ‘additional reporting’ credit. True, the Young Ferret’s sharp nose and special skills had proved more than helpful, but Ivo wasn’t having anyone back in the newsroom forgetting that it was he, wearing out his shoe leather here on the ground, who’d got the ball rolling.

Except that wasn’t true, either, and, if he was honest, that’s what was really pissing him off. Everything Roxanne
had told him so far had checked out, but now she’d wised up and was refusing to disclose where she was getting her information. He suspected her source was the Ice Maiden and that it was DS Fisher who’d enforced the blackout for her own protection. It certainly made sense, but it rankled nonetheless, and he devoutly hoped the cub reporter wasn’t hot on the scent of some career-making story that would leave him dead in the water. If there was one situation Ivo really and truly hated with a passion, it was finding himself on the back foot and outsmarted by the competition.

He stood on the brow of the slope from where he could survey the massing crowds. Who the fuck were all these people anyway? They couldn’t possibly all have known Polly, so what were they doing here, clutching their balloons and soft toys and flowers and swaying to the plaintive sounds of young female singers Ivo had never heard of? How was making a shrine out of cuddly toys or playing Polly’s favourite music supposed to bring her back? ‘Our Polly.’ Well, he could hardly complain: he’d done as much as anyone to encourage this maudlin outpouring of pain-free grief.

He sensed someone behind him and turned to find Keith at his elbow. ‘Evening, all,’ Ivo joked, but Keith didn’t smile. Ivo couldn’t blame him. The
Courier
’s headline this morning had been
Back to square one
, and in his lead article Ivo had gleefully pilloried the SIO and his team for their incompetence.
Has a killer been set free?
, his first
column heading, had reminded amnesiac readers that Pawel Zawodny was the second suspect to be released without charge. The next column heading –
Burnt out?
– introduced a snappy discussion of whether Superintendent Keith Stalgood was past his prime, rehashing the fiasco of the Chalmers case en route. So no, all in all, Ivo hardly expected a welcoming grin and a slap on the back from his old sparring partner.

‘How did you find out about the bottle?’ demanded Keith, obviously dispensing with preliminaries.

Ivo raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s that important, is it?’

‘Don’t fuck with me. Or when we do charge our man, I’ll make damn sure you’re the very last to know.’

‘I don’t scare easy. Besides, my editor just signed up your previous chief constable to front a column at two hundred grand a year plus a ghostwriter to do all the work, so I don’t think we’ll be begging at your door for news any time soon.’

Keith sighed and abruptly lowered himself to sit on the ground, stretching out his long, lean legs and leaning back on one elbow. With his free hand he patted the grass beside him and looked up at Ivo. ‘Let’s talk like reasonable human beings.’

Ivo sat down, his old bones creaking; with his belly, he’d probably struggle humiliatingly to get back up again, but he’d worry about that later. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Shoot.’

‘You’re right,’ Keith admitted. ‘I’m on a hiding to nothing. Hilary’s only got half a dozen press officers across the whole of Essex to keep hundreds of journalists happy. It can’t be done, even if she actually knew what she was doing. And I’m not naive. I’m fully aware that it would be career suicide for my overlords to take on your bosses by championing someone with my track record and telling you lot to piss
off and let me get on with my job. So let’s just accept that you’re going to make me run this investigation with one hand tied behind my back and there’s not much I can do about it.’

‘The way of the world,’ Ivo agreed. There’d always been something about Keith Stalgood that he’d admired, and he felt obscurely flattered that the man had chosen to level with him.

‘There’s only one thing I care about.’

Ivo waited, but Keith didn’t continue. The sun was heading for the horizon, allowing the hundreds of tea lights to glitter more brightly. A hushed, respectful murmur of voices rose up to them from below and even Ivo had to admit there was something moving, almost enchanted, in the scene.

‘Do you want to see another of these kids get killed?’ Keith asked in a low voice.

Ivo thought of his daughter: she could be down there and he’d be none the wiser. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’

‘Is someone on my team leaking details of the investigation?’

‘I don’t know.’ Ivo hesitated: it went against every atom of professional instinct to say what he was about to say, but he said it anyway. ‘The tip-off came from Roxanne Carson on the
Mercury
.’ He saw Keith’s face harden. ‘I don’t know who she’s talking to. She won’t tell me,’ he added, wishing, for some unfathomable reason, to shelter the Ice Maiden from blame.

‘And it all came from Roxanne Carson?’

Ivo swallowed hard. ‘We applied a few dark arts of our own, in house.’

Keith nodded. ‘Thanks, Ivo. I owe you one. I won’t forget.’

‘It’s OK,’ Ivo mumbled. ‘Call it a freebie.’

Keith scrambled to his feet and, with a discreet flutter of his hand in farewell, made off down the slope. Ivo watched him go, wondering what the fuck was happening to himself: if he didn’t watch it, he’d turn into a right sentimental old tosser.