Little Face (5 page)

Friday, October 3, 2003, 12.10 PM

`RUN THAT ONE by me again,' said Charlie. `You're suggesting that
David Fancourt killed Laura Cryer?'

`It's remedial fucking logic! Anyone with a brain would say the
same, now that Alice and the kid have disappeared. And there's something about him. I thought so as soon as I met him.' Simon tried to put
the reason for his mistrust into words. `There's no real person behind
his eyes. I looked at him and all I saw was a blank. Remember that
Billy Idol song, `Eyes Without a Face'?'

`Call me slow,' said Charlie, knowing Simon would never be foolish enough to do so, `but I could have sworn I headed the team that
worked on that case myself, and I could further have sworn that we got
someone for it.'

`I know all that,' said Simon distractedly. He'd still been in uniform
in those days. Charlie was the expert. Still, he couldn't silence the voice
in his head, the one that was shouting Alice's name in the dark. And
underneath that, the same question, over and over: would she have run
away without telling him? Would she know that her disappearance
would worry him personally as well as professionally? He hadn't
really said anything. He hadn't said or done nearly enough.

Simon's parents were the only two people in the world whose
behaviour he could predict with absolute accuracy: their tea at six
o'clock, church on Sunday morning, straight to bed after the ten o'clock news. He came from a stable background, all right. Most
people seemed to think stable equalled happy.

Behind Simon's back, a spotty bobby was playing Pokey. Every so
often he hissed `Yesss!' and banged into the back of Simon's chair.
The one-armed bandit machine, the canteen's only asset. Simon
hated it, regarded it as the mark of an uncivilised society. He disapproved of everything that he perceived as being in that category:
noisy, beeping machine entertainment. If he ever had childrenunlikely, yes, but not impossible-he would ban all computer games
from the house. He'd make his kids read the classics, just as he had
as a child. The lyrics of another eighties song, The Smiths this time,
sprang to mind: `There's more to life than books, you know, but not
much more'.

Morrissey had it right. Sport was pointless, socialising too stressful.
Simon loved the careful, deliberate nature of books. They gave shape
to things, trained you to look for a pattern. Like a man's second wife
going missing after his first wife's been murdered. When an author
took the time and trouble to choose exactly the right words and
arrange them in the right order, there was a possibility of genuine communication taking place, the thoughtful writer reaching the thoughtful reader. The opposite of what happened when two people opened
their mouths and simply let their half-formed, incoherent thoughts spill
out. Speak for yourself, Charlie would have said.

`I assume it was the lovely Alice who put these suspicions about Fancourt into your mind. What's been going on between you and her,
Simon? As soon as this becomes a misper, you'll have to tell me, so why
not get it over with?'

Simon shook his head. When he had to, he'd tell her, not a moment
before. As yet, no case file had been opened. He didn't want to hurt
Charlie, less still to admit how badly he'd fucked up. I hope I don't
need to remind you how much trouble you'll be in if you've been seeing Alice Fancourt in your own time. You'll be a suspect, you bloody
idiot. How was he supposed to know that Alice and the baby would go missing? `Tell me about Laura Cryer,' he said. Listening would be
a distraction; speaking at any length would be an ordeal.

`What, over a cream tea? We've got a shitload of work to get on
with. And you haven't answered my question.'

`Work?' He stared at her, outraged. `You mean the paperwork I
thoughtlessly created by coming up with the evidence we needed to
secure convictions in two major cases?'

He felt the fierceness of his own stare, wielded it like a drill. Eventually Charlie looked away. Sometimes, when Simon least expected it,
she backed down. `This'll have to be quick,' she said gruffly. `Darryl
Beer, one of the many bloody scourges of our green and pleasant
land, killed Laura Cryer. He pleaded guilty, he's banged up. End of
story.'

`That was quick,' Simon agreed. `I know Beer. I arrested him a couple of times.' Just another piece of Winstanley estate scum, streets
cleaner without him. Once you'd met enough characters like Beer, you
fell into using cliches, the ones you were sick of hearing other cops use,
the ones you swore you'd never resort to.

`We've all arrested him a couple of times. Anyway, you wanted the
story so here it is: December 2000. I can't remember the exact date, but
it was a Friday night. Laura Cryer left work late-she was a scientist,
worked at Rawndesley Science park for a company called BioDiverse.
She went straight from the lab to her mother-in-law Vivienne Fancourt's house, where her son Felix was. She parked just inside the gate,
on that paved bit, you know?'

Simon nodded. He had set himself the task of sitting still for as long
as it took Charlie to fill him in. He thought he could do it.

`When she walked back to her car ten minutes later, Beer tried to
mug her. He stabbed her with a bog-standard kitchen knife-one
clean slice-and left her to bleed to death. Ran off with her Gucci
handbag, minus the strap, which we found by her body. Cut by the
same knife. Vivienne Fancourt found the body the next morning.
Anyway, we struck lucky on the DNA front. Beer left so much hair at the scene, we could have made a wig out of it. We ran the DNA profile and there was a match. Step forward, Darryl Beer.'

Charlie smiled, remembering the satisfaction she'd felt at the time.
`We were glad to be able to bang him up, useless junkie scrote that he
is.' She noticed Simon's frown. `Oh, come on! In the two weeks before
Cryer's death, Vivienne Fancourt had phoned the station twice to
report a young man loitering on her property. She gave us a description that was Darryl Beer to a tee-dyed pony-tail, tattoos. He was
questioned at the time and denied it. Said it was her word against his,
the cocky little shit.'

`What was he doing there?' asked Simon. `The Elms is in the middle of
nowhere. It's not as if there's a pub or even an all-night garage nearby.'

`How should I know?' Charlie shrugged.

`I'm not saying you should know. I'm saying it should bother you
that you don't.' Simon was regularly amazed by the lack of curiosity
displayed by other detectives. All too often there were aspects of cases
about which Charlie and the others seemed happy to say, `I guess that'll
have to remain an open question.' Not Simon. He had to know,
always, everything. Not knowing made him feel helpless, which made
him lash out.

`Did Vivienne Fancourt see Darryl Beer on the night of the murder?'
he asked Charlie.

She shook her head.

`The two times she saw him, where in the grounds . . . '

`Behind the house, on the river side.' She had seen that one coming.

`Nowhere near the scene of the murder. And most of the physical evidence we found was on the body itself, on Laura Cryer's clothes.
Beer couldn't possibly have left it during a previous visit. Because, obviously, that possibility occurred to us just as it occurred to you.' There
was a bitter edge to her voice. `So you can stop thinking of yourself as
the lone genius amid a cluster of morons.'

`What the fuck is that supposed to mean?' Simon wouldn't be told
what to think, not by anybody.

`I would have thought it was unambiguous.' Charlie sighed. `Simon,
we all know how good you are, okay? Sometimes I think you'd actually prefer it if we didn't. You need to have something to grate against,
don't you?'

`Why was there so much hair? Did Cryer pull it out? Did she struggle?' Fuck all that psychological bullshit. Simon was interested in
Laura Cryer and Darryl Beer. Really interested now. He wasn't just
asking in order to avoid an explosion. He still had that twitch in his
right knee.

`Or else the fucker's got alopecia. No, he tried to snatch her handbag. She fought for it, probably more than he'd anticipated. She must
have done, or it wouldn't have ended in a stabbing, would it?'

`You mentioned tattoos.'

`Love and hate on his knuckles.' Charlie mimed a yawn. `Not very
original.'

`So, you arrested him,' Simon prompted. As if by speeding up her
account he could find Alice quicker.

`Sellers and Gibbs did. As soon as they heard about Vivienne Fancourt's intruder, they picked him up. The lab put a rush on the DNA,
and let's just say we weren't exactly surprised to get the result we got.'

`You knew where you wanted the evidence to take you, and lo and
behold ... '

`Simon, I'm not in the mood for one man's struggle against the system today, I'm really not. This isn't a Greek tragedy, it's Spilling fucking nick, okay? Shut the fuck up and listen!' Charlie paused, to
compose herself. `Beer protested his innocence, predictably. Made up
some shite alibi which didn't really stand up. Claimed he was in his
flat, watching telly with his mate, who appeared to be marginally less
trustworthy than Beer himself. He didn't have a brief, so he got the
duty solicitor. We kept at him for a while, trying to trip him up. He didn't know we had a trump card up our sleeve, of course.'

`And you didn't tell him,' Simon guessed aloud.

`Phase disclosure, all above board,' said Charlie smugly. `We did our best to twirl him and it didn't work. Once we were sure we weren't
going to get anything out of him, we pulled the DNA match out of the
hat. His solicitor went mental.'

`What did Beer say?'

`He still denied it. It didn't do him any good, though. We had the
evidence we needed. Anyway, his brief must have talked some sense
into him. After a few weeks as Her Majesty's guest at Earlmount, Beer
suddenly changed his story. He confessed. Not to murder, to aggravated assault. He turned Queen's, shopped a couple of prominent
local low-lifes, promised to go into rehab and counselling, and got himself a lighter sentence. Fucking disgrace, when you think about it.
Twat'll probably be out before we know it.'

`Where is he now? Not still at Earlmount?'

Charlie pursed her lips and glared at Simon. After a few seconds she
said, grudgingly, `Brimley.' A category A/B prison, about ten miles from
Culver Ridge in the direction of the very unlovely town of Combingham. An iron grey sprawling concrete offence, it stood neglected
among drab fields that looked, whenever Simon drove past them, as
if they had been shorn by a particularly savage piece of machinery and
doused with noxious chemicals.

`Did Beer know the details of how Cryer was killed?' he asked.
`When he confessed, I mean.'

`Only a hazy version. He claimed he'd been off his head on drugs
and barely remembered anything. That was how he got the charge
dropped to aggravated assault.'

`He didn't tell you robbery was the motive?'

`What else could it have been?' Charlie frowned. A question,
thought Simon; an important question, yet she presented it as an
answer. `Beer didn't know Cryer. They didn't exactly mix in the same
circles. He'd obviously been hanging round The Elms in the weeks
before, looking for opportunities to break in. It's a fairly obvious target, let's face it-biggest house in the area. He was probably having
another scout round the place when he saw Cryer walking towards him with a Gucci handbag dangling from her shoulder. He ran off with
the bag, he was a drug addict-yes, I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that
robbery was the motive.'

Just occasionally, the expression on Charlie's face when she said certain words reminded Simon of the class difference between them.
There was a way of saying `drug addict' as if you'd never met one, as
if the flawed and the weak belonged in a different universe. That was
how Charlie said it. And she'd met hundreds. `Did he give you the murder weapon? Or the bag?'

`He couldn't remember what he'd done with either, and we never
found them. It happens, Simon,' she added, defensively. `Doesn't mean
the scrote's innocent.' All male offenders were scrotes. Women were
splits. The police's secret language was a second uniform. It made
everyone feel safe.

`A kitchen knife, you said?' That sounded wrong. `Wouldn't Beer's
type be more likely to have a shooter?'

`He might be more likely to, but he didn't,' Charlie said calmly. `He
had a kitchen knife. Focus on the known, Simon. The DNA match.
The knife wound in Laura Cryer's chest.' She was as vigilant in defending her certainties as Simon was in examining his doubts. The combination wasn't always comfortable.

`Did you interview the family? The Fancourts?'

`God, if only we'd thought of that! Of course we bloody did. David
Fancourt and Laura Cryer had been separated for several years by the
time she was killed. They were in the process of getting a divorce and
he was engaged to his second wife. He had no reason to want Cryer
dead.'

`Alimony? Custody?' She'd avoided mentioning Alice by name. It
could have been a coincidence.

`Fancourt's not exactly strapped for cash. You've seen the house.
And why assume he'd have wanted full custody? He still got to see his
son, and he had his new romance to think of. Having a kid around fulltime might have been a bit of a passion-killer.'

She had the air of somebody answering these questions for the first
time, which worried Simon. `The family would have closed ranks,' he
said. `They always do, especially when there's a prime suspect like Beer
in the frame. It's much easier to assume it's the outsider.'

"`The outsider!"' Charlie sneered. `Aw, you make him sound all
sweet and lonely. He's a fucking drug addict piece of shit. Simon, come
off it, for Christ's sake. You know as well as I do that drugs are
always involved. There are three kinds of murders: domestics blown
up out of control, sex attacks, and drug-dealing scrotes with shooters
waging turf wars. But basically, most of them usually boil down to
drugs at some level.'