Good Girls Don't Die (27 page)

When the Child Intervention Team offices opened on Monday morning, Grace was already waiting outside. Over the rest of the weekend, with Lance’s help, she had run what checks she could on Danny’s mother. Retrieving her name from an old electoral roll, they’d learned that Marie Tooley had been arrested three times for being drunk and disorderly. Cursing herself for not having made this vital connection earlier, Grace had done her best to glean what information she could from the Child Protection weekend skeleton staff, and was trying hard not to let the hours she’d spent on hold or being told she needed to speak to someone who was on indefinite leave colour her attitude when she finally came face to face with an individual.

Charmaine Worrell’s cramped office had all but vanished beneath a warehouse of dusty brown folders, each one of which Grace presumed must represent a family in crisis. It had been no different in Kent, where the same handful of families was known not only to the social workers but also to teachers, police, duty solicitors, magistrates and prison
officers. In many ways Danny had done pretty well just to hold down his job in the bookshop and keep the grass cut in his back garden.

Charmaine had bright, intelligent brown eyes, and Grace imagined she ran a tight ship, despite the overload. Grace wasn’t too surprised when she didn’t need to open a file to respond to the name Danny Tooley. ‘His mother was a chronic alcoholic,’ she told Grace. ‘By the time Danny was thirteen he was bathing her, cleaning up her vomit, keeping the house decent and somehow managing to buy her booze for her while she stayed in bed for weeks in a drunken stupor.’

‘Why did no one do anything to help him?’ asked Grace, appalled.

‘He loved her,’ Charmaine answered with a shrug. ‘We removed Danny from her twice and each time he ran home, so in the end we more or less gave up.’

‘What about his brother, Michael?’

Charmaine shook her head, her eyes straying to the lights blinking on the multi-line handset on her desk.

‘He’s older. Had a different father,’ prompted Grace.

‘Sorry, no memory of a brother. Maybe he never came to our notice. It’ll be in the file.’ She looked around her office. ‘Somewhere.’

‘Anything else you can tell me about the family? About Marie?’

Charmaine sighed. ‘Only that she loved her booze an awful lot more than she loved her son. There were times when she treated him like dirt, or simply ignored his existence. Every once in a while she’d get sober and try to make
it all up to him, but it never lasted more than a few weeks. Only Danny knows which was worse.’

Grace got to her feet. ‘Thank you. You’ve actually been a great help, and I appreciate you making time to see me.’

Charmaine also rose courteously, smoothing her suit skirt over her wide hips with neat hands with freshly painted red nails.

‘No doubt we’ll be in line to share the blame, if it turns out there’s been another avoidable tragedy,’ she observed with discernable irony.

‘I hope not,’ said Grace, smiling.

Charmaine shrugged, one hand already hovering over her flashing phone.

As Grace made her way out through the narrow reception area, she came face to face with Ivo Sweatman, who sat in one of a row of beechwood chairs upholstered in a variety of soothing colours. Recognising her, he smiled as if he were pleased to see her. ‘DS Fisher!’

Grace struggled to make a sound that wasn’t an outraged groan. ‘I don’t want to speak to you.’

‘You’re here about Danny Tooley?’

Speechless, she pushed through the door beside him and headed down the stairs but soon heard his heavy footsteps behind her.

‘Wait, please. I’ve spent time with Danny. I can help you. Let me help you.’

Grace was too angry and confused to listen. She banged on the green knob that was supposed to open the outer door but nothing happened. Ivo caught up with her.

‘You have to keep pressing it,’ he said.

She dropped her hand and stood aside. He pushed his palm against the button and the door swung open. He followed her outside onto the pavement. Realising that he wasn’t about to give up, she turned on him. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ she demanded. ‘What gives you the right to go grubbing about in my life? Just so you can sell newspapers!’

‘I did it for you,’ he said simply. ‘I heard your job was on the line.’

She stared at him, not comprehending.

‘It worked, didn’t it?’ Ivo grinned. ‘I thought it was a nice piece. It was your idiot husband I skewered. And I bet you enjoyed watching your old boss Colin Pitman squirm.’

‘I want you to leave me alone,’ she said. ‘Whatever happened to me, it’s none of your business.’

She walked off, but he followed her again.

‘What did you find out about Danny-boy, then? Did they tell you in there that his mum’s favourite tipple was vodka?’

‘What?’ In spite of herself, Grace spun around to face him. Ivo nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off hers.

‘Look, I’m sorry, OK?’ he said to her. ‘No one likes their dirty linen, and all that. But I was right, wasn’t I? I bet the chief constable lapped it up.’

‘How did you find out about Trev and me?’ she asked. Her throat felt tight and she was suddenly afraid that she was going to cry. But she had to know the truth. ‘Did Roxanne tell you?’

Ivo looked surprised more than surprised, wounded.
‘Only that you knew each other at university, that you’d been with the Kent force. The rest wasn’t exactly hard.’ He must have seen her doubt, for he raised a hand. ‘Scout’s honour. Roxanne never breathed a word of it. Anyway, give me some credit. Finding stuff out is what I get paid to do.’

‘She never told you about me and Trev?’

‘Not a word. And I tried, believe me.’

Grace nodded, relief washing over her. She took a deep breath and blew it out again slowly.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me you weren’t in there asking about Danny Tooley?’

As Ivo looked at her quizzically, she thought that he must have been a good-looking man when he was younger. His eyes shone with intelligence and, despite the broken veins in his cheeks, the sagging chin and the bald patch, he wielded his charm as if, once upon a time, he’d been used to women falling at his feet.

‘So how far have you got?’ he asked.

‘I shouldn’t even be talking to you!’ She set off again along the pavement, but he fell in beside her, tucking a hand lightly under her elbow. It was an old-fashioned gesture that reminded Grace of her father, and she didn’t shake him off.

‘I realised something this week that I’d never thought about before,’ he told her. ‘I don’t generally give a shit about who did the crime. I don’t come at it from that angle. That’s your job. But this one got personal. She was a sweet kid, your friend, and I owe it to her.’

Grace asked herself if he was spinning her a line, feeding
her the irresistible bait that would persuade her to drop her defences. If so, she wasn’t rising to it.

‘Truth is, I’d been coasting on this story,’ he went on, ignoring her silence. ‘Roxanne did all the work and I took all the credit.’

She nodded to show that she was, after all, listening.

‘I think Danny Tooley killed her.’ Ivo said it so quietly that at first Grace thought she’d misheard. ‘I reckon you think the same,’ he told her. ‘Why else would you be talking to Child Protection first thing on a Monday morning?’

Grace stopped and drew back against a shop window to let other pedestrians go past. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you start?’

‘As the actress said to the bishop.’ Ivo dug in a pocket and pulled out his phone. He tapped and swiped and then handed it to her. On the little screen was a faded colour image of a small boy sitting cross-legged beside a thin, dark-haired woman in white leggings and an oversize pale-blue sweatshirt who sat hugging her knees on the floor of some kind of small outdoor wooden structure, like a toy fort in a children’s playground.

‘Is this Danny?’ she asked.

Ivo nodded. ‘With his mum. Fifteen years ago. Probably his only picture of her. It means a lot to him.’

Grace looked at it again. Danny and Marie each held a packet of crisps, and Danny was smiling with pure happiness. Marie, too, smiled for the camera, but not enough to hide the strain in her eyes. ‘Did Danny really tell you she drank vodka?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Ivo with a wink. ‘I made that up. But I hit the bullseye, didn’t I?’

‘Yes,’ said Grace, intrigued that someone else had come to the same conclusions. ‘Polly and Rachel were both drunk. I think that’s what this is all about.’

‘I know more than a little about what it’s like to live with an alcoholic,’ he told her. ‘Two wives and a daughter all really believed they could help me beat this thing.’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t happen like that. You’d be amazed how many times you have to let someone down before you finally convince them you’re not worth it.’

‘Are you still drinking?’ asked Grace.

‘No. But I had a long chat with Danny-boy. His mum obviously did her best, gave that vodka bottle some real welly and still couldn’t get him to wipe his hands of her. Unlike his older brother. He saw sense and scarpered as soon as he could.’

‘So when Danny wanted to take care of Polly, but she got drunk and slagged him off, he –’

‘He lost it.’

It gave Grace confidence to hear someone else so perfectly in tune with her own thoughts, but there was no way she was about to get into an involved discussion with the chief crime correspondent of the
Courier
about a suspect in an ongoing murder inquiry. ‘I need to get back to work,’ she told him.

‘I don’t blame you for not trusting me. But I meant what I said before. If you ever need my help, it’s yours.’

‘Will you send me that photo?’ She nodded towards the phone still in his hand.

‘Sure. But don’t forget, young Danny-boy isn’t who he wants you to think he is.’

As Grace handed Ivo one of her cards, she reflected that he probably already knew her shoe size, never mind her email address. But nevertheless she felt awkward and embarrassed, as if something intimate had just passed between them, although to anyone passing by they were merely two people who’d apparently stopped on the pavement for a chat on their way to the office.

Ivo left her to head back the way they’d come. As she set off towards the police station, she remembered – almost with a stab of joy – what he’d said about Roxanne. Her friend had never betrayed her! It had all been her own paranoia and stupidity, which left her with the terrible realisation that if she had only listened and trusted and shared when they’d met that evening in the coaching inn, instead of making ridiculous accusations, Roxanne might still be alive.

Grace tried not to look surreptitious as she slipped into the MIT office as unobtrusively as she could. She made it to her desk without meeting anyone’s eye; pity, contempt, embarrassment, she didn’t want to know what anyone thought of the
Courier
’s revelations about her marriage. Lance seemed to sense her purpose, for he gave her merely an ordinary casual Monday morning greeting. ‘OK?’

Grace smiled her thanks. ‘Yes. Where are we up to?’

‘Matt Beeston should be up before the magistrates in London on rape charges as we speak. Then the plan is that he’ll be brought back to us. Keith’s talking to the CPS lawyers to see if we’ve got enough to charge him with murder.’

Grace nodded.

‘And the surveillance team have reported that Pawel Zawodny is taking steps to put all four of his houses on the market,’ said Lance.

‘Well, if he can’t rent them,’ said Grace. ‘He told us it was always his intention to sell up and go home to Poland eventually.’

‘Or off to some country with no extradition treaty,’ said Lance darkly.

‘You still think he killed Polly?’

Lance nodded. ‘Sure of it. We’d have found her otherwise.’

Lance’s certainty gave her pause. Where was Polly? If she was right, and Danny
had
killed her, what had he done with her body? That inkling of doubt raised another: why would Danny have wanted to kill Rachel Moston, a young woman he barely knew?

‘Who interviewed Danny?’ she asked, ignoring Lance’s look of surprise at her sudden jump from Zawodny to Danny Tooley.

‘Me and Duncan. He stuck to the same story he told Ivo Sweatman. Nothing would budge him.’

‘And you don’t believe him?’

Lance laughed. ‘Keith was all for arresting him for wasting police time! This story about saving Polly, it’s all in his head.’

‘But you checked it out, what he said?’

‘Of course.’ Lance sounded a little irritated. ‘Polly doesn’t show up on the CCTV from Ipswich railway station where Danny said he dropped her off, and all the reported sightings coming in are still random, from all over the country. None of them so far stack up. All her cash, credit card, mobile network and social media links remain inactive. Dead.’

‘What about Michael Tooley’s BMW?’

Lance held up his hands. ‘Yeah, OK, we picked it up on
CCTV in Colchester the night Polly went missing, but Danny says he was out drinking with his brother’s friends. We’re checking, obviously.’

‘When will you know?’

‘The army will get back to us in their own sweet time.’

‘I’m hoping I might get to speak to Michael Tooley,’ Grace told him. ‘One of the army wives promised to get word to him, though he hasn’t managed to make contact yet.’

‘Why do you need to speak to him? We’ve got the car.’

Grace could see that Lance was losing patience with her. She looked around the room. The MIT office had a good buzz to it today in busy expectation of getting some positive results and successfully ending this first phase of the investigation. Even after the two suspects were charged, there’d still be plenty of work to do, but the fear – of failure, ridicule, another tragedy waiting to happen – would be gone. She understood why none of them would want her to tell them that they were wrong and should start over again.

‘Danny’s mother was an alcoholic,’ she said. ‘Twice they tried to take him into care, but he ran away, ran back to her. He missed out on his education so he could take care of her. His alcoholic mother was all he had. Polly and Rachel were both drunk. The bottles were about alcohol.’ As Grace made each point, her own earlier doubts evaporated.

‘Matt got women plastered so he could have sex with them,’ argued Lance. ‘Told himself that, if he was too rat-arsed to be responsible for what he was doing, it wasn’t rape.’

‘And Polly?’

‘Matt didn’t kill Polly. Pawel did. Look, Grace, I spent a good couple of hours running through Danny’s story with him. He’s a fantasist. Do you honestly think a sweet kid like Polly Sinclair is holed up somewhere, waiting for the heat to die down, knowing the hell her family must be going through? For two whole weeks?’

‘No. I think she’s dead.’

‘But these were confident, aggressive crimes, probably very well organised, with split-second timing. Not Danny’s style. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ Lance paused, clearly concerned that she’d take his opposition the wrong way. ‘Not unless you’re thinking of Anthony Perkins in
Psycho
, anyway!’

Grace tried to smile. ‘Well, he’s not a psychopath, but he has been damaged. I think badly damaged.’

‘So Danny was in care, had an addict for a mother, so what? He wouldn’t have got near Rachel Moston that night. She’d have eaten him for dinner.’

‘That I agree with,’ said Grace. ‘And if he didn’t kill Rachel, then he’d have no reason to kill Roxanne. Yet I still think the vodka bottle, the wine bottle, the jacket under Rachel’s head –’ She frowned and let out a sigh of frustration. ‘Look, Lance, would you come with me to talk to Danny?’

Lance shook his head. ‘They’re bringing Zawodny in. Sorry, but I want to be here, be first in line to interview him.’

‘Fair enough. But, please, don’t forget Danny’s crush on Polly was weird enough for him to come up with this whole
rescue fantasy, this powerful wish for her still to be alive.’ Grace almost added that Ivo was suspicious of Danny, too, but caught herself in time: seriously bad idea to admit she’d been passing the time of day with Ivo Sweatman! ‘I think we’d be crazy not to take at least one more look at him,’ she said instead.

It was Lance’s turn to glance quickly around the office. ‘First off, I really do think that Zawodny is our man. He killed Polly. He may not have meant to but, if you ask me, thanks to him she’s feeding the fishes. And Matt Beeston’s a nasty piece of work, more than capable of the other two killings. And second’ – Lance lowered his voice – ‘you’ll be doing yourself no favours right now if you stick your neck out. No one else is going to run with you on this. You’re new here. You have a history. You
were
talking to a journalist, even if the chief con decided to let it go. Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted she did!’ he added hurriedly. ‘I really am. But you must realise that you’ve seriously pissed off Colin Pitman. And I very much doubt he’s a good enemy to have.’

‘
I’ve
pissed him off?’ demanded Grace. A dream she’d had last night came rushing back. It was one she’d had several times since Trev’s mates had taken him away in a police van, a nightmare in which there was something stuck to her that she couldn’t get rid of, no matter what she did, how hard she tried. She was beginning to realise that it was not about rejection or punishment, but shame at her own stupidity for ever imagining it would be all right, ever supposing that she deserved to have her life work out OK.
And now, did she honestly believe that the rest of the team were getting it wrong and she was the only one to see clearly? Or was she, as Trev, Colin and the others had repeatedly told her, obsessed with her own bloody-minded ego? Still out to prove that she was right?

She realised that Lance had a hand on her arm. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean that. But’ – he moved even closer and lowered his voice even further – ‘there’s been a rumour this morning that Colin could be disciplined over his failure to investigate that assault on the prisoner in the van back in Kent. Your ex-husband confirmed to Ivo Sweatman that Superintendent Pitman
was
aware of it and failed to investigate. So he’ll be out to discredit you any way he can. Seriously, you really do have to watch your back.’

‘OK, thanks.’ Grace’s heart did a little leap in hope that, however vindictive Colin might prove to be, the whole sorry mess might finally start to unravel. Meanwhile, she had to decide whether she really wanted to stand out against every one of her new colleagues.

Lance must have seen her uncertainty, for he patted her arm. ‘Get some evidence,’ he told her. ‘Look, Grace, you and I disagree; that’s fine. Who knows, maybe I’m wrong. But you need evidence.’

‘Can you cover for me if I disappear for an hour or two?’

‘Go!’

On her way out through the car park, Grace saw Pawel Zawodny getting out of a police car, escorted by two officers. His clothes and hair were dusty, as if they’d pulled him off a job and not given him a chance to change or even wash,
but he stood up straight, his expression calm. She was too close to pretend she hadn’t seen him, so she greeted him politely as she walked past.

‘One day maybe I’ll understand why a woman like you would want to do such a dirty job,’ he said, looking at her sadly.

One of the officers caught Grace’s eye and gave a tiny shake of the head. In any case, she knew better than to engage with such a remark and kept walking. Yet she felt a pang of guilt. It seemed to her that in two short weeks Pawel had been robbed of that golden edge of self-assurance with which he’d looked her up and down on her first morning with the Essex force, as though their suspicions and accusations had stolen something vital from him. But she beat down her feeling of regret. She owed him nothing. He was a suspect in a murder inquiry. And she had a job to do.